#the ghosts listen to orpheus sing

He stood before the throne
and we stared, astonished,
at his breath pluming
in the cold air.

And then he strummed
his lyre and sang
the things we knew
and had forgot—
the earth in all its seasons
but especially spring
whose kiss melts
the icicle’s bone
so that the dead bush
blooms again.

He sang the splendid wings
sex lends.

He sang the years passing
like sparks
flung in the dark:
anvil, tongs, and hammer
toiling at pleasure’s forge.

Last of all it was loss
he sang, how like a vine
it climbs the wall,
sends roots and tendrils
inward,
bringing to the heart
of the hardest stone
the deep bursting emptiness of song.

Gregory Orr, Orpheus & Eurydice: A Lyric Sequence (Copper Canyon Press, 2001)