If I were to close my eyes,
I would see the leaves of autumn,
Upright on their stems and side by side
Like a phalanx of fallen heroes.
Myrmidons of the season,
You appeared,
Or so it seemed,
One morning when I was not looking,
Fringing the limbs of the maple
Like the rime of an old man's beard.
When I finally took notice,
There you were at my feet
In the darkness of an afternoon
When squirrels scratched their way home.
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3 comments:
"I had a vision:
There was the oak, as many-leaved as ever,
As many ants among its many branches ---
The great tree shaken by a sudden tremor
While ants dropped to the grassess at its feet,
Then seemed to grow, to stand upright, to lose
Their shadow thinness and their black complexion
In human forms...."
A different take on the transformation into Myrmidcons.
Thank you.
Thank you for your comment! I love Ovid, and the Metamorphoses are the fount of so much of Western poetry. Happily the web (and Cha Sen) are keeping Ovid alive.
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