Following Plutarch: Why Neither Gods Nor Ordinary Things Speak to Us Any More with Music or in Verse?

 

Aren’t these ancient vases

in their soft and glossy shell

and serene inspiration

female silhouettes

with risen, diving arms—

 

ready to be filled

only to be emptied

with a sun-bathed wine

which, when tasted,

makes men speak

 

much of what they know

and what they never knew,

and how many temples

came down from that vision

with columns taut as strings

 

their dream must have plucked

and snatched from Orpheus’ lyre,

turned into gleaming portals

from marble that was let to sing?

Aren’t these ancient vases a dance,

 

a dance, held out to you—

along with its nectar drink—

in evocative standstill

while the air’s dying

for an aulos’ swell and move.