Birth of a Poem

 by Brett Rutherford

     From a fragment of Callimachus, Aetia 7

There must be someone,
some Eileithyia, midwife
or fairy of the birthing hour
that oversees new poems
kindly, and sends them forth.
Just as in Paros they honor her,
an idol dressed in gilt-edged
robes and daily blessed —

may such a one come to me,
     Ellate nun, elegoisi
         d’enipseisasthe liposas
          cheiras emois
wiping her two anointed hands
not on my head, but on my elegies,
     ina moi poulu
          mensois ’itos,
that they may go on forever,
beyond my span of years,
to live beyond fire,
     and forgetting,
to leap the wormholes
     of tattered papyrus
and come back whole again.

A poem, once begun:
can it ever be finished?