La nuit dans une dense forêt
Résonnent les derniers mots de l'explorateur
Envouté dans le noir par une brève paleur
Flottant doucement au delà du marais
Emu par un étrange cortège
De petites et folles lanternes
Qu'entre les arbres à peine on discerne
En suivant les feux follets c'est l'esprit qui s'allège
Dans les ténèbres, le chant des lumières
Dans le silence dansent les lueurs
Et dans les yeux meurent les clameurs
Au delà de la forêt, au dessus d'un marais
Flotte l'âme de l'explorateur
Suivant dans la brume d'étranges clartés.
Il naquit un beau soir de novembre
Et l'on cru voir le rejeton de lucifer
Il n'eut dans sa vie de sa mère
Qu'un petitarbre taillé dans la cendre.
On lui interdit l'accès à l'église.
Au marché, on hurlait:"file, sale bête !"
Au cirque, on hurlait: "quelle tête !"
Il n'avait de plaisir que de sentir la brise
Il fascinait les biches prudentes
Charmait les papillons craintifs
Et cueuillait parfois les fleurs des ifs
On lui arrachait avant qu'il ne les sente.
La nuit il comptait les étoiles
Le jour fuyait la foule comme la gale
Un matin on retrouva dans une ruelle
Une petite silhouette toute frêle
En silence, recroquevillée dans le noir
Comme il fut abandonné un beau soir.
Sous l'ombrage d'un sage sureau
Coule une intrépide rivière
Ecoutant la mélodie d'un oiseau
Gardant captif le feu en sa serre
Envoutant de son chant toute la contrée
Séduisant les colombes avec ses plumes de soleil
Tant et si bien qu'à la fin de la journée
L'éclat de la flamme brilla comme le soleil
Son plumage vivement s'incendia
Et le feu sacré, s'étant vengé de son geôlier
s'éteignit doucement sur un monticule cendré
Ayant pitié, le sureau tendrement
sculpta des cendres un oeuf
et donne à l'oiseau une seconde vie.
Death of the Last Satyr
Death comes for everyone, as a messenger hades prepares every day.
Decided for the soul he waits well awared, waits the hour for his prey.
Hades the god of death, all time is in his power and none living soul escapes its due.
It is well said that all living and the unliving bend on before his throne,
even the must majestic and wise of them all, the satyr.
Hades sees no virtue, even youth, beauty and kindness plead in vain,
For once someone sees the light, he orders the eyes to shutdown.
The last satyr of them all, more than one hundred years old,
Saw on his eyes the road still to be walked.
When Hades finally arrived to pick his soul up,
He too suddenly sent him off.
But the messenger of death has made his mind up,
And with one unseen blow he was prepared to make the satyr his own.
The satyr, the most majestic and wise living thing in all of Greece, realized Hades plan.
“Postpone my death oh Master Hades,” the satyr prayed.
“I am the last of my species and as old as I am, I can still dance and amuse them all.”
The satyr cried, “Think of all the wisdom I can still leave behind,“
On his knees he now begged, “Forget about Zeus, Poseidon and the cruel Olympians,”
My teaching will leave nothing behind, but praises for the master of the underworld.
“Old Satyr,” said Hades, “despite all of your intellect you are blind;
This should be no surprise, more than one hundred springs you have danced.”
The satyr grabbed his robes and cried, “there is still so much I need to do.”
To which Hades replied, “Tell me, am I not the most benevolent of them all,
how many satyrs more is there for you to dance?”
To finish it all, the Master of Death, exclaimed
“I have been observing you for a while,
it is true you have many quests to still embark on, but ala, if you have not done them by now
you probably will never start on those tasks.”
As soon as the satyr realized how good Hades argued his side,
The old satyr accepted Hades stand, and on to the river Styx he set his path.
Observing this, the master of death thought to himself,
From all the millennia and should I have picked up never in my life have I seen such sorrow.
Many years this old goat-maned creature has lived,
And Ive never seen so many paths still to be walked.
Tonight the moon is on waning crescent;
it hangs on the eastern sky like a sharp steel
wedge against a backdrop of unlight.
There are no stars in the perimeter, only
a slight cool breeze, the last remnant of winter
cold--nowadays the seasons have lost
their senses, acquired a tendency to drift,
while the moon goes on waxing and waning,
as it has, since she came out of the earth's crust
four point four million years ago.
Tonight I drive my old Ford under the wedge
of the old moon, drifting like the seasons
through half-deserted streets--streets not long
ago fraught with people and traffic and suits.
Out here in the perimeter the grand trees sway
in the cool breath of June, unhurried by design,
moving in slow tempo to the soft cadence
of the night.
Was it like this eons ago when you and I,
in far other guise, roamed the silver valleys
of the moon, whispering like the leaves
under huge skies? with thoughts too strange
to share in this supernal spot of Time, this
conjunction of times, this unfathomable universe?
Perhaps beyond our limited perceptions,
in the night's huge exhalations, other selves,
other lives, connected to our own, take
their being, and return to us on a cool
night like this, when the moon is on waning
crescent, and there are no stars in the perimeter,
just the grand trees, unhurried by design,
all a-sway in the cool soft breeze of June.
--Jim Valero, 03/19/2012.