Poetry is written across the gowns
Of the impossibly serene faces with hands that
Hold palms and hooks of manifestation.
Green-skinned knowledge cries from secret eyes
For the real to be revealed as the ideal.
From Gods far more benign: Humans more actual.
What has happened to us? Who no longer put
The boxes of the dead inside our hearts,
Or ride papyrus boats with ankhs ablaze
Knowing dung beetles co-equal with kings.
II. Eleusis
Aphrodite, Demeter and Persephone,
Always those three, seated in the sanctuary,
Piously cloaked, while the arrogant spear
Throwing boys go unclothed.
Demeter reveals only her Wheat,
Persephone her Horses for the Journey,
Aphrodite her beating Wings.
The initiates proceed without knowing
If they are lovers, mothers, daughters, twins,
They only know the precise instruction
And that knowledge itself is the only salvation
For knowledge, as they offer myrtle branches
And are harnessed to otherworldly horses,
Having broken the death cult amphora.
The thought of death had kept them from life
As a mote keeps light from the eye.
Now they are free. Now piety begins.
