Rite of Spring
We were grown inside nostalgia, in refuge,
Through forced arrival where we became the first
Generation naturalized, betrayed in
A conflict with Neptune.
Unable to account for the mounting losses,
For mothers, fathers, mentors, god temptations—
Genius, still, we played in the maze. We loved
Obfuscating it.
The miserable children of those committing
Atrocities we couldn’t comprehend, yet
Imitated these, and when we hailed the spring
They arrived again—
Ships sailing in for the blessing of the fleet,
Leaving their sacrificial obligations,
Seven and seven, playmates for a season,
Tribute thereafter.
After the first of seven was plucked for the
Feast, the others would set up camp
Around the twists and turns of the pathways,
Chastity-in-residence—
And they would plot to meet and spoil themselves,
To love the murder away, but they were kept
Apart, running from the gaze of the creature
Whose shadow you cast.
It was our universe, the portrait of you before
Silence grew us, when not knowing held wisdom,
First confidant, first betrayed, you who ruled this
Fragile fantasy—
With the flourish of your outbursts, tantrumed your
Way, annihilated all in your path, slammed
The garden gates, settled your father’s accounts
In the rite of spring.
With you in a hall of mirrors where neither
Of us exist, part of me is still trapped with the
Only part of you I can remember,
Past what I can see.
As far from home and as foreign as I was in
That false-face place, the turret curated a view
Of their wealthy and unworthy tourism, our
Deep dives, marked for show—
Assaulted with questions that tangled us in narrow
Squares and triangles, in its foul geometries,
Blades that spun when that awful sound rang out
(Then moved, stopped: scene change).
We are over center, moving steadily,
Hovering above the fray, in calm and
Quiet, in relationship to the back roads of
Our time together.
The older we got, the further we ventured,
Those known or remembered grew fewer, our
Mythology to go late, go farther. Our
Power surged with age.
Marble gave way to forest, and you failed in
A different orientation to it all, knocked
From our shared axis, an unknown effect,
A memory lapse.
(How old were we then? Did we drink wine or mead?
Or were we still drinking the juices of the
Apricots and peaches? The mystery man,
What did he offer?)
How did we find our way to him without the
Signs? The lure of the place and our journey there,
But the span of a few months, stretched instead for
Years in their meaning.
Ecstasy at the distance I could travel
Between catastrophes, a bright, brief acumen
That caused me to cover so many years,
In those short visits—
In search of a trace of you amid the ruin,
To know you in your vanquished, unexamined
Reluctance, a discarded undergarment,
A hair within them—
Something I could conjure you with through
Scent, a familiar cover, the veil between
Something erotic and its more sensual
Predecessor—
A talisman to allow an impossible
Intimacy, even now, just to know one
More secret thing about you and the universe
Of who we were.
Resting together in that illusion of
Safety, she watched from afar, behind her
Observant mask of acquiescent regard,
Yet to be involved.
She knew my mother, the inamorata
With the black horse. I envied her foreign
Sophistication, and that she could touch that
Which I could not—
Though her father (your father), and my own had
Lain with her in turns, we might be some strange
Trio of siblings if not for the fact
Our stations were such.
I was still consort to a monarch whose wine casks
We refilled with well water, while you roamed free in
The prison he built for you. How we nearly charred his
Quarters at sunset—
Before nature sounded her evening cricket calls
From the deepest ditches on the forum side!
We stopped, silent for his footsteps, while I envied
Night its blackness.
But your music filled those afternoons. Your words
Kept company with me in quarantine when
I looked out at morning but could not touch
Its radiant brow.
In the lazy afterglow, rods still smoking
In our hands, while they took turns with our mothers,
We took ours, in turn, with one another as
She wound up her clew.
Even then, you were busy collecting
The relics of our time, the pieces of us
You would archive for remembrance, already
At peace with the end.
I forget the word she used, but it sounded
Like a condemnation, a slur she would
Hurl to grab the attention of passersby,
Warnings tinged with pity.
They would spit and turn their heads with a smile
On the other side of their faces (you brought
Her with you, such complicated company,
And heeded no caution).
Coping with passions we weren’t allowed to know,
We’d reach for them all the more such times a
Handsome figure would cross the stage and give a
Name to our longing.
From Still, the Sky, Ransom Poet Publishers
© 2022, Tom Pearson