Orpheus and Eurydice
The Greek Myth Told As A Poem
They say his songs were sweeter,
Than all the fragrant flowers,
Than all the buzzing bees,
Than all the lovely bowers,
His lyre danced through darkness
Casting rays of newness
On the faces of all he sees
But especially his Eurydice
Alas, the fates play with strings
Not of lyre or of harp
But of fragile, fleeting lives,
Holding out their scissors sharp,
Snipping them at the wrong time
And so the beloved, the bride
Without an ounce of warning
Was struck down in the morning
Orpheus wept deeply,
As the fangs of the snake sunk in,
His grief drove him to his knees,
But great courage also hit him.
He stepped into the depths of the dead,
It was as though his song bled,
He poured out his sad refrain
Into the land of loss and pain
And those woeful verses,
Brought others to stillness,
They nullified even Cerberus,
Even the sailor of the Styx,
Even the forgetful ghosts,
-Drifting on the Lethe’s black coast-
Even the god of death,
Heard the song and held his breath
And to that god’s beloved wife,
Orpheus’s pleas drew tears,
And to his own eyes, though
He had shown no mercy for many years.
There in the land of emptiness,
Orpehus felt a surge of weightlessness
He would have his love again-
It was not the end for them!
But he must not look back, not a glance!-
Until the light of day met his face-
Or all would be lost once more,
She would return to this awful place
And so Orpheus’s courage unfurled
As he walked back through the Underworld
Soon he could hear her footsteps
(What a marvelous sound,
In a desolate ghost-world!)
He kept his eyes on the ground,
Intent on keeping his word
-Though hope rose like a bird-
He would not look back,
He knew it for a fact
And as he reached the world
Of solid things, of light and memory,
All fell apart at once,
In a terrible, terrible tragedy.
The reason, exactly, unknown,
Of how their fates were sown,
But the light of day never kissed
The face it had so dearly missed.
Whether from fear, doubt, or misunderstanding
Whether from hearing her trip,
And turning to stop her falling,
Her hand did slip,
And she fell away,
Into the gray,
As he looked upon her eyes,
As she met her dim demise
The almost-true, almost-there,
Almost-solid, almost-real
Shade of a girl he loved,
Out of Hades’s deal,
Vanished at the gateway,
A shadow in the full light of day,
Never to breathe again,
Never to be with him.
And in his sorrow, he remembered,
That last look of hope in her face,
Over and over, his heart bled,
As he though of that place,
And as his hope vanished altogether,
Like a bird loosing a feather,
So he took up a new song,
To sing through the days and nights long
And could find no comfort or shelter,
Until his own lifeline was cut,
And his soul drifted down,
And his tomb was shut
Far from any mournful verse,
He took upon the curse
Of the Lethe that he crossed,
And his memories all were lost.
But the queen of dead remembered him,
And took sympathy
And so she lifted his forgetfulness,
As well as Eurydice’s.
They embraced, through tears,
After all these bitter years,
And now they walk together,
Holding one another forever.
But what Orpheus knows,
That many mortals forget,
And what Eurydice understands,
Better than the wisest of men,
Is not a one,
Steps into the sun,
Without looking back.
For we always look back.
Inspired by Orpheus by Vincent Lima