A Spark of Laurel

Stanley Kunitz

This man, this poet, said,
"Tve carried in my head
For twenty years and more
Some lines you wrote before
I knew the meaning of
Euripides or love";
And gravely then intoned,
Lured from the underground
The greekness of my song
Still melancholy-young;
While she, long since forgotten,
For whom the song was written,
Burned wanton once again
Through centuries of rain,
Smiling, as she must do,
To keep her legend true,
And struck the mortal blow,
But not that blood could flow.
Ha! Once again I heard
The transubstantial word
That is not mine to speak
Unless I break, I break;
The spiral verb that weaves
Through the crystal of our lives,
Of myth and water made
And incoherent blood;
What sirens on the coast
Trilled to Ulysses lost,
And Agamemnon's thigh
Opened at length to cry:

This laurel-sparking rhyme
That we repeat in time
Until the fathers rest
On the inhuman breast
That is both fire and stone,
Mother and mistress, one.