stories from the city, stories from the sea

Horses

"Here's another story.It tells how the Sun falls in love.
But before that, we hear how his light sees everything first:
in this case, brightening the bed where A__ lies.

She makes him fall in love...
He turns up in disguise, then discloses himself to her-you know?And so
overwhelmed by his radiance, ..she gives in. As you would.
But there's another girl, who also loves the Sun.

The other girl-the jealous one-
is changed into a tiny flower,..
turns her face forever, following the Sun."

The queen, not happy with that, demands another story...

At the pool, she's eaten up by desire and tries
to kiss him, but he's still too young to understand.
She retreats, watching him slip off his clothes and dive in.
Besides herself, she plunges after him, pulling
him under, taking him by force, and praying
to the gods that their bodies will never be parted
And so it was, like two trees grafted,
they were made one."

But the mythological is too superficial, has too much lightness. The Queen wanted to hear something real-just for once, even if they weren't his own words.

'The green leaf opens
and the leaf falls,

each breath is a flame
that gives in to fire

and grief is the price
we pay for love,

and the death of love
the fee of all desire.'

The light, whether we know it or not, never unifies in these late days; instead, it breaks and mourns, and wrecks whatever has a chance. The summer light rides the high tree tops like a horse, a dream that won't settle, but knows nothing of the dark time of the roots. And this southern light, which wasn't meant for me, became my fate. I think I'll die under it.

This place would be nowhere if you were here. Hard, hard though it is for you, you know gently: there's no return of lost time. If there was, we would be dark for one another.

Clear of myself, at last, I saw you, but you, like me, were riddled with light. We, who were made one by the gods, were parted, like two trees, or like the fish and the sea.

I am the Tigris without the fish
I am a fish without the Tigris.