Orpheus and Eurydice

The sunlit hills conceal a vale in Thrace
where wandered once and sang a muse's child.
I rested there, nearby a listless river's bridge
and weary slept past dusk to wake much late
and find late babbling light-lit pools
infesting threat and shadow-gloam.

By arches of this bridge mist poured:
O'er rock, o'er eddy and o'er the river's flow,
cataracted horror come 'cross shore.
Still blanket cloaked-wrapt 'round I backed,
barely looked nor brooking thought
of what was there, or not.

I saw two wraiths approach.
My eyes mistook: t'was one.

Stay! I cry. Halt there and farther not!
Though the apparition stands, I flinch,
fear flooding thought, my heart, my limbs.
Stay I said and stay he did,
a wild staring stay. Now fixed on me,
I never saw such eyes so seeming lost of any hope.

Stricken eyes. Lyre across his chest.
Fingers spread against the strings,
slack dribbling mouth, un-voiced,
eyes looking back. For what?
Nothing moves within the swirling dark.
What does he imagine there? A dream?

Then answer comes upon a note,
a note that echoes 'neath the bridge,
building bank to bank and up the slopes,
so purely constant as he sings:
Her Orpheus I am. Her Orpheus I am.
Oh note, I know you, story too, and well.



Be warned ! few stories go this bad.
She, near-wed, mad pretty in the rush,
is serpent-spat against her heel.
She falls rapt still from Orpheus' kiss,
is bourne to myrtled bowers' mossy bed,
fails, lingering whispers un-allowed by death.

His lips drew in her breath, her hair,
thick body-scented strands, his hands
about her hips, laying sweating-still before
the over-warmth of morn' force them apart.
Barely touching backs for cool,
their ankles then unlink, prescient of this day.
 
Near dawn were two, entwined,
before the noon just one.

It happened quick as oft a dying is:
no repine, no time for kiss-fluted fare-thee-wells
or even time to save or savor
faltering beats, fix the 'membrance
of a lover's breath upon the lips.
No. She goes and harshly quick.

Now Orpheus sees all life unmasked:
sunlit and murmurring streams perhaps,
kindly no. Spawn's eaten here by frog,
she by heron, egg by rat, feral cat and violently
to man, whose sister's fate
is likely rape beside a brook.

This is hell amongst the bloom and grow.
Spring's warmth is cruel,
the feast of unrestraint, that stands
without the plause that wordly things
might be undone, redone, or given back.
Zeus or Hades are the options now.



In his thoughts, Eurydice's are kind.
She will bring cool water to the senile
listen with a smile his lonely loons
and posy scented flowers as her gift.
To 'Pheo she admits her cares
and so her hand is on his heart.
 
Of her self (for 'Pheo's looked at moments
when her thoughts were somewhere else):
were she not the same in self he'd judge
in how she smiled or frowned or stooped,
but she is constant in her self,
this suitor's test no more applied.

Of grace: Orpheus saw the girl
once chase a startled fawn,
nut brown two limbs matching four,
leaping, reaching, hoofs snapping, slapping
soles upon the grass. She felled the beast
to merely pull a hurting thorn.

To his eyes Eurydice's will change,
one moment hue of spume and winter sea
next sheen of spring-dewed  moss,
then autumn-down flecked bold by light.
Clear gazed, orbed utter white these eyes'
grow black when 'Pheo's by.

In mingled breath, Eurydice drinks wine
in meadows, plying her's to 'Pheo's kiss.
A kiss, a lick of sour breath and wet ripe lips,
each's kindness cast aside for lust;
instinct of desire, all within that breath,
breast, flank and swelling mound.



How could she know he'd rivet up
his hard'ning heart 'gainst this divorce?
Natural beats constrained by iron,
forcing blood beyond its real pulse
to limbs and mind alone, gentleness
of love forgot, to only rail.
 
In that final race across the rush
Eurydice was scent of sun and grass.
Had he caught her, kissed her, tasted
lips, freckled cheek and seeded hair,
could chance, a moment's lull in chase,
confuse the snake so love might be?

The answer's yes! for Orpheus
though no god, enjoys the mortal gift.
Chance is all our life! I'll prove the point:
a die that's thrown a hundred times
all falls one side yet still permits
a further cast's apology.

Faithful men make prayer and wait.
Some hurted, break faith.
Others linger in the midden pit of hope,
faith un-guided, so are despaired.
To Orpheus anger comes,
illumed by the coldest light of loss.

What he'll never know is this:
Eurydice is all of certain things,
dew-fall's wet and warmth of day
her love for Orpheus undisputed,
subject to accept the is as will
without dispute and no remorse.



Daffodil stands prim midst
honeysuckle loosely vines
her scent to lilac, dappled air
and insect drone above the grove.
Time-stopped, wine-drowsed to lull
awhile her lover thrums his song.

Here forest light is dimmed,
its day-long dusk denying
tangled groves and unexpected,
swards to all but nymph,roe or they.
Here he sings and how he sings:
Your Orpheus I am.



Fixed Orpheus with her coal eye she warns:
I will the Hundred-Handed-Ones,
and Titans in Tartarus deep,
unleash to broken vows. Look back before
Eurydice is cast in lights of day
then such or worse will have her soul.

Alas! rising to that gate
concealed beneath the Bridge of Thrace
the Singer's glance is drawn by sound:
Eurydice's mistep, a heel-raked pebble-clink
that draws his curséd eye and casts
his lover back to Hell.

Lament! Ten steps yet more,
such cautions would be void.
Look not back! she'd warned.
When 'tis done, whence came she'll go.
But back  he looked and now
his fair Eurydice is gone.