Finding Orpheus Poem by Barry Van Asten

Under love's not sleeping,
We turned our backs upon the wind
And made a picture book of symbols
From dry leaves and feathers and things that
We'd found.

And we whispered softly into bird madness
Which gave less dread of volume.

Herded like cattle over ley lines;
All night we sang sorrow's tempest is done,
Spun of the fairest years, now flown;
Flung back to a braver and radient realm
To give the death's-head force of nature form.

But a memory of love persisted
Where meanings in broader mysteries cling,
Through this simplicity, drawn
Like a dark veil over everything:

A watery voice; an echo of time's arrows
That murmurs softly from afar,
Blowing it's visceral night ballads that roll
Through easeless age and what we are.

But now, a Macbeth in the heart
And a Caesar in the brain
Have given meanings to symbols, and thoughts
Are the beginnings of speech - silent again...

With the spirit's core, we erode our past
And find it's obscure language dead;
As dead as the Latin word that seems
A thumping Caliban of things once said.

Still with eyes closed, we feared to look
Upon the eve of another day
Where evolution leaves us sick again.