Eurydice

poem

Iris Shaw

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I have eaten of the tree

deep-rooted in the bones of hell, her tree

a thousand times, a thousand unremembered days

half-forgetting what I am –

There was another tree, which I lay under

and there you sang to me, I am certain of it

on certain days

when the thin-tongued bells are still;

Perhaps you have forgotten?

Now I recall your face

though I have drowned your voice in Lethe

more often than I should, it burns my ears;

Yours was a kind face, I think: they tell me

you are yet among the living, is it so?

I have tasted death

and found it sweeter than I thought

for when you left, the tree bent down its branches

pitying me, and I did eat.

Apple, pomegranate, still I

am yours

in dreaming and in death

half wishing it were not so.

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