Читать книгу Spells - Annie Finch - Страница 28

CALENDARS

A poem in chants for four voices:

Demeter

Chorus

Persephone

Hades

In the winding

of the vine

our voices stretch

from us and twine —

No, going into the waiting places

is not easy. Flowers fade there.

around the year’s

fermented wine —

Mostly, it’s surrender of wanting,

or the fear that a flame will be dampened—

or that everything warm will come rushing

over me with reproach—or that endless

needles could be ranged in the tunnel—

or that my bare feet would be slippery—

Yellow. Fall roars

down to the ground,

loud, in the leafy sun that pours

liquid through doors.

Yellow, the leaves go down

or that once I’m down in that darkness

someone outside will block off the entrance—

Touches of gold stipple the branches,

promising weeks of time —

Thread with Me

My lover, when you riddle with me—

reddening slowly, then suddenly free,

turned like a key

Oh! the falling flowers have caught me

by dipping yellow, purple towards the hunger—

—the hard, the intricate dark

(I hear the notes of your words

ring for me cool as the birds,

my lover—

through the long year’s

fermenting wine

her thin stems turning, held to be—lost—

my lover, when you thread with me

Now you are uncurled and cover our eyes

with the edge of winter sky,

leaning over us in icy stars

through this night-shot

night-shot dark

is never easy.

Flowers fade here.

Voices pull me on through the cavern

from the new season. Her voice old, silent—

our hands, our breasts, our curves

curl through our hands and ravel—

On damp limestone, a violet curling—

my lover, when you riddle with me

the hard, the intricate dark.

Rack me with courage, spring,

come kill me, flowers;

if we are shadows, come;

make me our shadows

as I reach for flowers.