(a trifle)

At the Symposium at Agathons’
The men there congregate complained
That none had yet wove metres meet
God Eros to acclaim. So much.
For other gods I likewise men arraign.
What poet has from that Eleusinian deep
Of groom and nymph or watching-one-through-death,
Becoming father, mother, else
Of those wide fordings we must make
From childhood to statures older and more high
Composed in praise a lyric to adorn
Those faceless mysteries which God does use
To show us how to see the face
Buried beneath the ashes of our minds?
No, poets pick their flowers and prefer
A poor sublimity to rich quotidians,
One apple from the scented boughs of Avalon
To myriads of laughing buttercups.

What of a man who learns he’s soon to die?
What flowers of rare quality can there be found
In that crepuscular grey land
Where stars begin to press their heels in the grass?
Maybe my charge is nonsense and the flowers there
Are folded in a petaline loveliness
So dense that to expound them would but sound
Like silence wrapped in gold and gold in silence.
Indeed, I loose us from this court. I think
The only thing that one can do
From the far side of this river or that
Is bless with heavy blessing those who cross,
Burn incense to the wind and hope it fills
Their lungs with spicy nectar, ice
Melting down leaves of aloe, and faith
That one was meant to walk on water all along.