Ἄορνος
Dear Love, on these cold nights, when the fine snow
Rests lightly on dark, frozen soil, Sleep tugs
My body, stretched beside you in your round-trip
Through the dark pathways of the Birdless Lands.
Under the starry baldachin of darkness
Your breasts, wrapped in a pleated quilt, rise up,
Then sink -- another trailhead to Love's Mountain
And its inviolate snowfields as deep
As Time.
When, in enveloping deliria
Of dreams, in soft incursions of caressing
Time, on the sinuous shores of our Hearts' Lake,
I count the ebb and flow of breath and life,
And you stir in a moment of deep breath:
I wonder where you are, in asphodel
Or aconite, or maybe, next to springs
Bubbling up among tall, whispering poplars
At the secret convergence of cessation
And birth.
When Luna, in her frosty sleigh,
Cuts through the frozen sky, and her She-Bear
Pants her breath across the Milky Way,
I stir in twilight sleep and waning Night,
And ponder, in the tremors of my heart,
If we will wake to rose-lipped Dawn's first kiss,
Or will you take another turn through darkness,
And pass beneath the Lake of Falling Birds?
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There is a strong sense in this tender, reflective love poem that time is running out for the speaker and his beloved - who journeys in sleep through "the dark pathways of the Birdless Lands" - that soon enough "the ebb and flow of breath and life" will cease for both of them. But who will go first, and what happens then?
"When Luna, in her frosty sleigh,
Cuts through the frozen sky, and her She-Bear
Pants her breath across the Milky Way,
I stir in twilight sleep and waning Night,
And ponder, in the tremors of my heart,
If we will wake to rose-lipped Dawn's first kiss,
Or will you take another turn through darkness,
And pass beneath the Lake of Falling Birds?"
That allusion in the very last line to "the Lake of Falling Birds" is possibly to Lake Natron in Tasmania, where the lakes high salt content causes bodies to petrify rather than decompose - which, of course, would preserve a corpse in a manner similar to mummies in ancient Egypt. So, is there a hint here of some life beyond death - even in the reflective lake-like casket of a profoundly well-written poem? I would be very much inclined to think so. This is exquisite!
By the way, I have no idea what the title of this poem means, so I'd be grateful if Bob or some knowledgeable reader would enlighten me in that regard.
Yet another masterpiece!