Eurydice's Lament

Singing, I sat in a field
gathering medicinal plants.
I knelt, skirt spread around me,
filling my apron with lavender
and dandelion greens--I sang,
brushed pollen from my fingers--
and you drew near, silent
in the cool wood's silence,
my healing song gathering you
to me. I stood, left my song
whistling through the grass,
quiet on my lips--I saw you,
you thought yourself hidden,
but I saw the stillness surrounding you,
birdsong's absence. I knew
your wild music, had seen
your music make the wind
dance in your hair, sun
in your eyes, willowy nymphs
around you, dancing, dancing--
bubbling stream nymphs, hair flowing,
girls like wanton flowers
spinning in the wind.
You saw me see you, like a deer,
I caught the startle in your eyes, limbs
twitching to run--but you stayed, said
Eurydice: my name. Eurydice.
You spoke only my name,
and I came to walk beside you,
silent in the wood's cool silence.
Later, we sat on stones, talking,
hands in the grass braiding
blades idly together. Rising, we left
the slender twisted shoots like signs
to the universe of the idle twisting
of our lives into a single strand.
Now when I sat, weaving baskets
at the edge of the woods near my home,
when you sang and the nymphs
slipped past me to your side, now
I knew your eyes saw behind them
my fingers dancing through the reeds,
over and under, in and out, braiding
your rhythms into my basketry,
into lace, into loaves and thatch.
I danced only once, wearing
white lace and a wreath, barefoot
on the day we married, I danced
spinning like the sun across the sky,
like grass in the wind, I danced
as dusk hid the earth from our eyes,
our tired feet falling heavily, our breath
thick with joy and exhausted song.
When I stumbled I fell sideways,
felt its fangs like fire biting my sole.
Silence, stillness, sleep, death, I slipped.

-Kelly Vaughan
May 18, 2001
(to be continued)