THE FUNERAL OF SARPEDON

Zeus is deep in sorrow. Patroklos

killed Sarpedon; and now the son of Menoetios

and the Acheans charge in

to seize and humiliate the body.

But Zeus doesn’t agree with all this.

His beloved boy—whom he left

to perish; that was the Law—

he will at least honor in death.

And, look, he sends Apollo down to the plain

well briefed on what to do with the body.

With reverence and sorrow Apollo lifts

the hero’s body and carries it to the river.

He washes away the dust and the blood;

he closes the terrible wounds, not letting

any trace of them show; he pours

ambrosial perfumes; and dresses him

in gleaming Olympian garments.

He blanches the skin white; and with a pearl

comb combs the jet black hair.

He straightens and arranges the beautiful limbs.

Now he looks like a king, a charioteer—

twenty-five, or twenty-six years old—

at leisure after winning

the prize in a very famous race

with his golden chariot and fleet steeds.

Having finished his task

Apollo sends for the two brothers

Sleep and Death, and orders them

to take the body to Lykia, the rich land.

And toward that rich land, Lykia,

these two brothers Sleep and Death

walk, and when they arrive

at the door of the royal house,

they deliver the glorious body,

then return to their other labors and cares.

And when they received the body there, in the house,

with processions, and mourning, and honors,

and with abundant libations from sacred chalices,

and all things due, the sorrowful burial began.

And after that, experienced workers from the city

and famous carvers of stone came

to build the tomb and the stele.

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THE BRIDGE

And again, in the evening, she was possessed by

that gleaming truthfulness of her sadness like something

restful, something of her own, hers only — herself

totally submissive and closed, whole yet totally alone.

She then gathered the rest of the strings in a paper box,

took her weeding tool carefully

with that inevitable moderation and attention to order

and turned on the garden light knowing the consequences

which follow a change in lighting,

calm, retired, acceptable to herself. Soon after, she felt

an exceptional joy in her grief,

she felt that her grief was her attachment to what

had been, to what is, to what will be,

to everything around and above and below

to everything within and without, a silent attachment,

a touch of immortality, a distant and balanced eternal light

that annuls the difference, erases the distance

between here and the beyond, among foreign

languages, nor does it need any translation

from her smile to the star, from the star

to the garden light, from silence to confession,

from a carnation to the weeding tool and to her hand,

from one hour to the next. She then turned on the faucet

and with the garden hose she started watering the flowers,

the trees near and far under the familiar starlight and the

           garden light.

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