28 December 2013

H. D. [The Green Lantern Press]

from H. D.'s Hermetic Definition:

Hermetic Definition, Part Two: Grove of Academe

[7]

That's it, I can sit here
on my rock-throne,
not moving,

or moving with everything,
like Cassiopea on her star-chair,
moving round the pole,

moving with the whole,
part of your giant-concept
of deserts, the earth entire

with water-fronts, sea-slopes,
storm, wind and thunder-crash;
I am perfectly supple and silent,

as I steal out (still lying here)
and integrate with the fan weed,
the bubble-weed and the strings and straggle

of the long under-sea grass;
I do not compete with your vast concept,
the prick of pine-needles brings me back,

yet I am a part of it
as I am part of the spiked
or smooth or lacquered sea-grass.


Winter Love

[3] 

Now there is winter-love, a winter-lover
who would take gladly — fondling the crisp leaves
with a padded paw, sheathed — glad to find

in the den, the sacred lair, no trap to entice,
no rapacious loins, and sighs, not groans —
no rain of arrows, no poisonous thrust of spears,

no thundering on the stairs,
no rasp of steel,
only Taygetus' silence,

till a drift of snow
slides from a branch,
then, silence more intense.


[11]

Helen's breasts, it was always Helen's breasts,
and the wine-cup that they wrought,
called Helen's breast;

cover my shoulder
for the wind howls louder,
outside this hunting lodge,

perched on Taygetus' cliff;
O, I was ready to leave Sparta,
a second time — O, I was ready enough

to escape — to follow you,
and we will not starve;
you say there is dried fruit

in the amphora and the wine-jars,
but I would wander in the Elysian-fields
and find the Tree for myself — for myself —

with a special low down-sweeping burdened bough,
low enough so that I could kneel
and savour the fragrance of the cleft fruit

on the branch, intoxicant;
I would be intoxicated with the scent of fruit,
O, holy apple, O, ripe ecstasy . . .

but believe me, believe me
I am grateful
that you came for me,

I am content,
besieged with memories,
like low-swarming bees.