in one signifying moment the just awakened poet sensed:
“most of what matters has already taken place in my absence”
and still persisting in his quandary:
“if now and then we merely stumble upon glimpses,
how might we carry on to sing of these renewed visions?”
thus from whence this poem commenced:
Hellenic desert night
tittering coyotes scattering
along the outskirts of Western Thrace,
red elephant trees and purple sage dancing about Orpheus’s head,
a sudden wet wind
conjuring further mellifluous chords
surrounding, ensconcing decapitated voices
and all the while,
silvery sweet Calliope’s lyre endured
weaving songs magnificent,
till Orpheus’s now disembodied ears stumbled,
and clutching at his mother’s scroll,
a somnambulist’s struggle,
both mother and son stumbled over
Calliope’s ivy flowing twining hair
and the two, connected by birth,
continued rolling along,
rock by rock,
pebble by pebble,
each grain of sand beckoning,
this mother and her son
thirsty for verse
while Siren’s voice enfolded, enticed, and evoked
white black magpies
demonically circling above,
then scattering:
all souls back to the garden
yet still stubbornly loyal to her anointed struggle
beholden to her father Zeus’s decree,
Calliope, despite eyes bloodied,
muse vision remarkable
another poem swallowed
another aura suppressed, shut down, stillborn,
somehow, her magnificent breath
reawaked to a worthier and more robust soul forming
as her songs again emerged:
the sweetest honey
to anoint the tongues of the gods of Greece!
then with first precious light
as Venus wended her improvised path,
as windswept almond and windflower trees lay bare,
Calliope’s roused breath touched every inspiration in perpetual exactitude,
and odists again became unfettered,
grateful sailors reboarded their shotgun radiant express train
circled back to Mount Olympus,
while we ephemerally irrelevant poets sped onward
embracing our muse’s resurrected vision:
a glowing portal
now radiating forward
hopefully within our collective sight
12/7/17
Port St. Lucie