lament

and then what? To warm again these reeds

that with waxed stems prostrate their mourning

to the diaphanous air where all has gone untormented

in the tremulous mist that domes the feathered nests

amidst their sorrowful wake for a spring that has left

with no melodies to retain her fading rain.

Shall i rise again from this grave of barren ground

that vexes the thirst of my rooting limbs

where the lymph once ripened in the kindness

of fleshy blossoms pouring sensuous scents

on the sinew of the shivering praying leaves

is substituted in the crickets graven despair of

a raped epitaph on this engulfing grave?

All the lands that i cover in flourishing visions

have become coursing dust without her smile

stealing brightness from the mountain springs.

For she has gone. my daughter, my beloved

Proserpine_ and i, Ceres, have seen no more

the piercing dawn that swerves the borrowing worm

from its consuming craving for death to its song which turns dumping thuds to the chiming

of regenerative harvests. 

                                              And yet i cuddle,

in my thoughts of sublime melancholy,

that make the fly midges buttering the bones

pleasurable companions to decaying syllables.

She has gone

among the arms tempered in the fire of hell

that sparkle and shine with the beauty that

an embrace of timeless flames can provide

to burn quivering fears in enduring heat.

I saw her shoulders blending with his warmth,

the ever firing rage that bends desire at its will,

and her legs have lost that nervousness that the spinning of my wheel seasoned in them

as in her blood his firing breath now flows.

Ades! destroyer of my fertility and treacherous teacher

i rest my pledge to these embracing darkness

that binds me to the image of upsoaring skylarks

entwining their melodies toward blinding lights

that silence the sky falling on the abode of my rest.

I ask no more but this winter crowning my hearth

with the clutching nails of rivers frozen cries

where nowhere i need to further my view

but to the icy tentacles of the strangling orchis

garlanded with crystal dews where i can see

my lament reflected to the latitudes of their

conjuct faces i will not stir to defile.