Garden With Torso II

Am I Alcestis or Electra,
Dido or Eurydice
enchanted into brons,

the bar of my grief lifted,
moving me unmoving
through green brights, green dims?

I'm the pure reduction of a woman
in a garden of forms

dancing where we stand stock-still
amid the applause of foliage,

sisters to those wild petric maidens
who dance forever without stirring

on the high heathland beyond the town,
circled by gorse and krann and salt-woven air –

I'm the tall heartshaped pillar
more articulate than Lot's wife,
speaking through touch,

receiving a daily tribute of hands,
giving back my tactile answers -

All of me that is not figured,
head, limbs,
is drawn into my proud dark core,
where all ripens,

is implicit in the beautiful absences
of limb and head,
my sheernesses leun a ras –
my hollows cupping the light,

my brother, Light, who stays with me so late into the evening,
can't get enough of my bronze poise,

the rooted lowen of my invisible arms
gathering the worthy and the unworthy to my breast –

Electra or Alcestis,
Dido, Eurydice or Everywoman…

Cornish Glossary:

brons - bronze
krann - scrub
leun a ras – full of grace
lowen – joy