Orpheus B.C.

Transformation… That’s what it is.
Ecstatic melody that tears me open
again and again.
Those atoning chords
strumming from your lyre
that fill the vacant space in chest
which mystics try to cram with prayers,
and make men seek the age-old path
to love god and love love and love sky,
and swirl like shadows torn apart from
bodies when they jump around the fire,
and make trees fill with sweeter fruit,
upon the strumming of your lyre.

I heard you died, torn apart
by Dionysus vineyard women
and that your limbs were drowned
in water, like the origins of sin,
and that you walked the underworld,
and that you walked the clouds
as a regular son of a sun god
and that Columbus went to heaven
by the atoning grace of your chords.

…But I see you here now,
sweet voice and lyre filling mystic spaces
as they have for eons,
making chests swell with love for god
and love for love and love for sky,
consecrating men by voice and song…
And I find it hard to believe
they had you, they heard you,
and let you come back.