Prayer to Night

by Brett Rutherford

     adapted from Meleager, The Greek Anthology v, 165-166.

1

Black-winged Night,
   or Goddess of primeval
     Nothingness,
mother and progenitor
of all the Titans,
hear my supplication

— if a poet’s prayer
means anything at all
to such a cosmic entity! —

this is about my lady
love, Heliodora —
yes, her again! She says
she is “indisposed,”

but just as you, Night,
companion my revels,
so too you gave me eyes
as keen as owls’, to see

that tall one slink by
her door, and back,
and then dart sideways
into the alley, o where
that garden gate so oft
is absent-mindedly left
unlocked and ever so
     slight ajar —

Night, goodly and kind,
Night, I plead, if it
so happens that he,
no better than a thief,

now lies entwined with her
in those fabled bed-sheets;
if his desire is kindled
by her body’s heat — Night,

douse the lamp, reach out
and touch his eyelids
and render him paralyzed
in such a stupor that
even her agile fingers
will give him no satisfaction.

Harmless as a kitten
and just as impossible
to dislodge, let him sleep
till dawn, a second
Endymion.

 

2

Noon! What trick is this?
I slept. My rival got away
with everything!
My vigil failed, the lamp
too soon expired; bad dreams
tormented me, and all
were visions of Heliodora
unfaithful to me. Her heart
is a vast cenotaph in which
not even a shard of me
remains. Do no tears come
when she remembers me?
When her own fingers
caress herself, does she
not wish the hands were mine?

No more shall I trust
the little god graven
on her brass lamp
to do my bidding.
(Flame up and flicker
and flutter off at will —
What fool I was to think
it would obey me!)

And as for you, O Night,
the acolytes of Orpheus
exaggerate your sway.
What did I expect, anyway,
from a floating abstraction
made up by some poet?