Dido's Lament

When I am laid, am laid in earth...

Visions throng the morning's birth,
Dreams clasp my hand before I rise from rest


...No trouble, no trouble in thy breast.

Consoled me Love, and then caressed
Me Truth, more gentle than the truth is wont to be


Remember me, remember me...

I loved his shadow, verily -
There is no bitterness


...But, ah!

I loved a shadow, verily.




Credits: Italics, "Dido and Aeneas" by Henry Purcell.
J.R.R. Tolkien.
Jesus.

A Saturday Without Gravity

When you asked me to be your mother, I didn't know how,
Except by carrying you longer
And letting you down.

To your sister I have been daughter, mother, father, lover;
Chef, and beast, and dressmaker.
Later I'll be wife, after waiting draws more than side-glances
Or startling stares through glass.

I wonder if the stories I tell you are my own,
If I'm waiting to be plunged into water.
It took death to make her love, love to make her live,
Life to make her feet ache on ground.

She's tied to twenty-two silken threads to keep from floating away.
I'm tied to my own apron strings.