Those Ancient Herms (A Bohemian Ode to Pan)

Those ancient herms,

watchers of the orchards,

awfully loved to give

tokens—offhand warnings,

but just to gaze and ogle

as if nothing at all were

either meant or spoken

to be ever remembered

by standing stiff

ossified and solid

in Cupid’s taxing term,

whether illicit or penal.

Amid all the flowers

both stupefied and

out of wits excited

by a splash, a sprinkle

glowing,

from first

morning

lustrous dew.

Amid spike

and thistle

the herms

and tillers

watched well risen,

armed to push

and prickle

perfect, erect

the stare of a trespasser

& the craving butt of hers.

Carduus, Cirsium,

Onopordum—

Cloaked like gods

in Latin terms

and nomens.

Blazing purple.

In the bloom.

Amid these pins

and needles

this new lyric

like that garden

comes to garland

Pan, the youngest God,

the son of Hermes

and Penelope,

both sensible

and rather sober,

whose delightful lover

had her husband jailed

in Calypso’s cave

for long seven years

in one row of pleasure

while he fed

that Helen’s cousin

ambrosia—turning her.

Divine, beautiful and deathless.

And Pan, the offspring,

wreathed and adorned

in pine needles is now

looming—as a buffed-up herm

that seems always,

as if on tiptoe,

perched—

for tilting forward

on the verge

of constant falling

into joy of music

with a roguish dance

and hoofs leaving

scarcely any trace

after Echo—

who just fled.

So, almost

like a poem

that shades

the white of page,

horned and tailed,

he serves for portals

between now and then.

With his magic herm.

To it in soft bending

a nymph, a fountain,

grants a charm, a plateful,

with honey amber taste.

There she draws a breath,

the air’s sweet delight,

a sip, a sultry draft

in which art and loving,

much painted deeply

in the awe

of wonder,

in the arcade,

stunning walkway

of the columned,

fulsome eyes,

peeks in beauty

like a dream, a vision,

that alights from heaven

down on earth or canvas

via hand and simple touch

led by a soul with a flair,

a heart and a true ear

for musical,

luminous love.

And in that bending

a murmured rapture

spilling past her

moistened lips

rims the limit

where a song,

a sound, a lyric,

is a soul translated

into an undying now.

And the body kindled

in the other body’s slip

makes a veil of gliding mist

in which, for an enlivening breath,

a heart still stores and always keeps

embers and embrace—like a song

in Pan’s aulos from a jointed reed

by which a soul may hold and lift

a tip, a tail, a purl of the Muse’s

floating, rippling, gliding garb—

wherein your bliss fell has held its hide.