Hecuba’s Song - Poem

With photos of crows posted today, how can I omit this poem? Don Cuervo, of course, is Sir Crow in Spanish, and this is for the Raven, my dearest friend. The imagery comes from Euripides' The Trojan Women, a powerful play about the aftermath of war.


Hecuba’s Song
For My Soul Mate

Don Cuervo, ever with your tricks,
you shake things up
and create possibility.
Without your mischief
would anything new emerge?
Like Poseidon you shake things up—
even a god who builds towers of stone
may lament groves become desert,
divine things fallen sick,
and forsake his altars—
structure shifts, certainties fail,
relationships rupture.
Who can know tomorrow?
If we did, none would believe.

“Oh, fools, the men who lay a city waste,
giving to desolation temples, tombs,
the sanctuaries of the dead—so soon
to die themselves.”

Upon what willows
might we hang our harps
when Babylon’s rivers
themselves lament?
Exile upon exile,
sorrow upon sorrow,
we have no continuing city.

Do our bones tell us
deep within
that our county is lost?
Triumphant over distant foes,
perhaps,
but lost to its own soul,
its dream,
its honorable hopes.

“All was nothing—nothing, always.”

I am no Cassandra.
Some believe me.
I know nothing.
Not what to expect,
nor what to hope for;
what to dread
or how to prepare.
Yet, I will launch my ship
with no known destination.
We sail we know not where.
“Drift with the stream.”
Oh yes, we drift.

Raven, troubler, do you know?
Have you any idea
where your detours may send us?
What you stir up?
Have I any notion
what I pray for,
or offer my tobacco,
or dance and beat my drum?

At last the vision
I could never draw
seems real:
Raven and Bear dance,
bearing their part
with all creation.
I cannot draw it,
but I see it.

It is good.
Creation continues.
This is no longer Troy.

April 10, 2003