On Sappho

Cruelly fractured
telegrams
of earliest lectures
in beauty
and a millenia past;

from these scraps
and pieces
that have
finally reached us –

In your letters,
you describe how
the island of Lesbos
comes alive
in the everyday life,

how
the men of Eros
burn with their eyes

and how
she bends her head
as her toga slips off
bared shoulders,

allowing
the sunlight
to pour rays
of gluttonous ambrosia,

bead by bead

along a lily neck
rosyfingered
by Aeolian summers past.

Whoever used
your papyri
to mummify
decadent kings
are long dead by now;

but, still:

so much better
to be late
for 2000 years,

than never

© Zelda Reville

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I posted a poem of hers earlier this week, and here’s another poem I did before I read her work.  It’s unofficially Sappho week on this blog! 😄