Narcissus Reflects

For Frederick Turner

I stare into the pool. Across the lake

The nymph repeats my final, parting cry-

"Pd rather die!" -

And weeps to think how for her vengeance's sake

The goddess Nemesis, or Aphrodite,

Condemned me to reflect on my mistake

By staring at this mirror, eye to eye

With mortal beauty

Until I saw why, stepping into view,

That dumb nymph Echo shook with hope and fear

As I drew near

And cried so desperately, "I yield to you!" -

As if the mimicry of senseless stone

Was what, among those cliffs, I sought to hear

And not a dialogue, a pas de deux

With the unknown.

Yet, slowly, what began as punishment

Became a blessing. Staring past my face,

I've learned to trace

In foam-fringed depth and starry firmament,

In cloud and frost, ear's whorl and crystal eye,

Pattern reflecting pattern, until space

Contracts and in a blue bewilderment

Of pond and sky

I see how in disequilibrium

Chaotic order hovers in suspense

Till turbulence

Erupts in whirlwind, flower, painted plume,

And ramifying limb, at every scale,

Till, gathered in one magnifying lens,

Imagoes, ranged like seraphim, become

A coronal,

A budding youth, a poet's branching tale.