What Star-studded Sin Approached The Throbbing Of Your Despair?

“What star-studded sin approached the throbbing of your despair?”

— Odysseus Elytis, excerpt of The Concert of Hyacinths (tr. by Kimon Friar)

“oh, how much of bloomdust is strained in the body of the bee for some honey. What silence in your heart for one song.”

—  Giannis Ritsos, Lady of the Vines

“After screaming, [Cassandra] calls out the name of Apollo sixth times, then again a seventh time, but the seventh time, by shifting the inflexion of the name slightly, she shows its etymology. Apollo’s name is cognate with the Greek verb apollesthai, “to destroy utterly, kill, slay, demolish, lay waste.” By crying out “Apollon emos”, Cassandra can designate the god as “my Apollo” and “my destroyer” at the same time in the same words.”

— Anne Carson, excerpt of Cassandra Float Can, from Float

““… about the cool water the wind sounds through sprays of apple, and from the quivering leaves slumber pours down …” We lie here in the bee filled, ruinous Orchard of a decayed New England farm, Summer in our hair, and the smell Of summer in our twined bodies, Summer in our mouths, and summer In the luminous, fragmentary words Of this dead Greek woman. Stop reading. Lean back. Give me your mouth. Your grace is as beautiful as sleep. You move against me like a wave That moves in sleep. Your body spreads across my brain Like a bird filled summer; Not like a body, not like a separate thing, But like a nimbus that hovers Over every other thing in all the world. Lean back. You are beautiful, As beautiful as the folding Of your hands in sleep. We have grown old in the afternoon. Here in our orchard we are as old As she is now, wherever dissipate In that distant sea her gleaming dust Flashes in the wave crest Or stains the murex shell. All about us the old farm subsides Into the honey bearing chaos of high summer. In those far islands the temples Have fallen away, and the marble Is the color of wild honey. There is nothing left of the gardens That were once about them, of the fat Turf marked with cloven hooves. Only the sea grass struggles Over the crumbled stone, Over the splintered steps, Only the blue and yellow Of the sea, and the cliffs Red in the distance across the bay. Lean back. Her memory has passed to our lips now. Our kisses fall through summer’s chaos In our own breasts and thighs. Gold colossal domes of cumulus cloud Lift over the undulant, sibilant forest. The air presses against the earth. Thunder breaks over the mountains. Far off, over the Adirondacks, Lightning quivers, almost invisible In the bright sky, violet against The grey, deep shadows of the bellied clouds. The sweet virile hair of thunder storms Brushes over the swelling horizon. Take off your shoes and stockings. I will kiss your sweet legs and feet As they lie half buried in the tangle Of rank scented midsummer flowers. Take off your clothes. I will press Your summer honeyed flesh into the hot Soil, into the crushed, acrid herbage Of midsummer. Let your body sink Like honey through the hot Granular fingers of summer. Rest. Wait. We have enough for a while. Kiss me with your mouth Wet and ragged, your mouth that tastes Of my own flesh. Read to me again The twisting music of that language That is of all others, itself a work of art. Read again those isolate, poignant words Saved by ancient grammarians To illustrate the conjugations And declensions of the more ancient dead. Lean back in the curve of my body, Press your bruised shoulders against The damp hair of my body. Kiss me again. Think, sweet linguist, In this world the ablative is impossible. No other one will help us here. We must help ourselves to each other. The wind walks slowly away from the storm; Veers on the wooded crests; sounds In the valleys. Here we are isolate, One with the other; and beyond This orchard lies isolation, The isolation of all the world. Never let anything intrude On the isolation of this day, These words, isolate on dead tongues, This orchard, hidden from fact and history, These shadows, blended in the summer light, Together isolate beyond the world’s reciprocity. Do not talk any more. Do not speak. Do not break silence until We are weary of each other. Let our fingers run like steel Carving the contours of our bodies’ gold. Do not speak. My face sinks In the clotted summer of your hair. The sound of the bees stops. Stillness falls like a cloud. Be still. Let your body fall away Into the awe filled silence Of the fulfilled summer — Back, back, infinitely away — Our lips weak, faint with stillness. See. The sun has fallen away. Now there are amber Long lights on the shattered Boles of the ancient apple trees. Our bodies move to each other As bodies move in sleep; At once filled and exhausted, As the summer moves to autumn, As we, with Sappho, move towards death. My eyelids sink toward sleep in the hot Autumn of your uncoiled hair. Your body moves in my arms On the verge of sleep; And it is as though I held In my arms the bird filled Evening sky of summer.”

— Kenneth Rexroth, When We With Sappho

Francesco Hayez, The Kiss, 1859