orpheus to eurydice

can i tell you
why i love you?

can i tell you
the curve, your neck, the moon,
the silence, your eyes, the night--

i stare at you, the star
and see
a thousand resting mysteries

taut against the inward surface of your skin
like apple flesh,

sightless, soundless waiting.
to burst the tender hide.
clear juice. white light.
my love.

demeter as cypress

those hands of his, chilled and brittle as just-turned earth,
taking her under roots and blind worms,
his dust-choked halls, heavy-veined stones
weighing her down, lightless, buried, the cries
of torment writhing in her eyes, sans night, sans day,

my beautiful girl, with hair spun down
to her ankles, who caught sun's rays and flung
them out around her like liquid,
every step
a song
with an arc deep as the sky.

my hands knot supplicant.
i do not know how to kneel
but i have knelt. like a tree's limb
battered
under a ceaseless wind.

duet for someone who is singing a song that he heard eurydice sing and his memory of eurydice singing it

remember, my love,
when you are gone from me--
remember the rosemary that piled the rock
under the low gray sky.
remember the petals that dropped
from the black-boughed trees.
remember the rain in the dark.

remember, my love (remember)
when you are gone from me
(when i am gone from you).
remember the clouds in the sky, how
they shone silver (remember
the clouds shining silver),
how they shone as white
as bone (how they shone
as white as bone).

quintet for hades, demeter, orpheus, and eurydice/persephone (an adequate translation)

2 or more characters:
"justice for i and everything
that saw her move and breathe, everything
that wept and worshipped in her wake."

1 character:
"justice for the rose that droops
for lack of light from her eyes."

1 character:
"when she walked, her step
was a bird that dropped in flight
to sweep the ground with a giddy wing."

1 or more characters:
"watching from behind rock and stone
feeling lichens stretch and tangle
in the heat of her presence."

1 or more characters:
"the vines stretched toward her like snakes."

1 character:
"a star broken from the heavens
spilling light like a song."

2 or more characters:
"what will we do without her.
where will we go.
we overswell ourselves with sorrow, crack
like stone in in a bone-dry riverbed."

persephone and eurydice:
"aaaaaah (tum tum)
aaaaaah (tum)
aaaaaaaaaaah (tum tum)"

hades to himself

her full pink wholeness,
the rose-tint cheek, the step of wind,
i watch drop, like a garment.
i watch her bare to pale and silence.

the bone moon wanes and the rock pulls toward it.
the fire quivers in the hearth; the rock swells toward it.

she does not move;
how is she smiling?
her eyes, remote as stone,
like stone, that vein below
of breaking heat--

seed juice runs red between
her lips and teeth--

why, why,
why do i love her
more than ever,
more than ever?

someone who is singing a song he heard persephone sing, or his memory of persephone singing it

sleep, to rise once more.

even the winged birds
lie still at night. the ruby-eyed falcon
and the dove with its feathers
like gray fur.

sleep, to rise once more.
the cat's tongue unfurls.
night throws herself across the sky.

unknot the ribbons
in my hair.

the seed
works
in earth.

sleep, sleep, to rise once more.

charon says

does she weep?
i ferried one, hair up, face blank;
she flickered like a lamp.

the other he pulled through the ground,
hades with his mighty arm,
like an inverted bloom--
she fades and flickers too.

does she weep? the ground
has its passions, the deep
earth
its cracks.

i ferried one.
her face was like
a pane of glass.

aristaeus: neither the honey nor the bee

honey-limbed eurydice
fleeter than the bumblebee.

waxen-faced eurydice
i chased her toward the apple tree
unlucky me, ill-fated she,
serpent-stung eurydice

those fading eyes, what did they see
when in their death they looked at me?
the bees build near the apple tree,
while underground, eurydice.

song of eurydice's bridesmaids or persephone's handmaidens

we wrap her in the winding sheet
her heart has lost its beat

and from her breast a flower grows
it is the rose

a red red rose with thorns that prick
a maiden's waiting fingertip

and at the root it feeds.
the rose never bleeds.
heed a maiden's song.
the rose knows no wrong.

song of the maenads

nor summer nor winter--nor life nor death--
nor flesh::nor breath::nor thought nor mean nor plenty--
nor over nor under. but through. let the hard bloom
grow. let the great great red stain
stain stain. let the red rose stretch and strain to open and to gaping.

song

there was a girl went underground
(went underground, went underground).
under hill and under down
(under down, under down).

the ones who loved her sought her round
(sought her round, sought her round).
they sought her up and sought her down
(sought her down, sought her down).

they turned up earth, they dug the ground
(dug the ground, dug the ground).
they found her in the earth deep down
(earth deep down, earth deep down).

her eyes were glass, her hair was down
(hair was down, hair was down).
her hands were red, her hair unbound
(hair unbound, hair unbound).

they took her up out of the ground
(out of the ground, out of the ground).
they took her back to hearth and town
(hearth and town, hearth and town).

in her narrow bed they laid her down
(laid her down, laid her down).
they went, came back, and found her gone
(found her gone, found her gone).

and in her narrow bed they found
(bed they found, bed they found)
a rose full-blown, a rose
full-blown, a rose
full-blown.
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