Orpheus, Gathering the Trees
        The Metamorphoses of Ovid, Book X, Lines 86-110

When love died the second time,
he sang at dawn in the empty field
and the trees came to listen.
A little song for the tag alder,
the fue cherry the withe-willow—
the simple-hearted ones that come quickly
ro loneliness.
Then he sang for the mulberry
with its purple fruit,
for the cedar and the tamarack.
He sang bel canto for the quaking aspen
and the stave oak;
something lovely for the white pine,
the fever tree, the black ash.
From the air, he called the sparrows
and the varieties of wrens.
Then he sang for a bit of pestilence—
for the green caterpillars,
for the leaf worms and bark beetles.
Food to suit the flickers and the crows.
So that, in the wood lot,
there would always be empty places.
So he would still know loss.

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Copyright © 2019 Greg Rappleye All rights reserved
from Tropical Landscape with Ten Hummingbirds
Dos Madres
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission