The hot, dry air has gotten restless. It is blowing about the room,

looking for your sundress.

The smell of sage wafts onto the tabletop,

coquettish and pervasive.

I am rooted in the shade of that summer willow,

its river-touched branches dancing and woven with my heart—

Don't you notice how you tug on it,

playing as they do in Pieria?

What lovely phantoms these memories are,

echoing the unending sweetness I saw in your eyes.

Twisting vines choke me, ripe with grief and fear-trembling.

Wine bitter-sweet spills from my heart and my soul cannot abstain.

Every drop of pain dappled in summer light is soaked into the soft temple floor,

Seeking the lattice-cracks at the root of my being;

I am ripe with what cannot be harvested.

I am drowned, baptized in libation, praying grace is near.

I do not seek release from this pain but within this pain.

This cavernous, echoing emptiness and the joyous melody that dances my heart

Spring both from the fountainhead of love.

Where is, then, the delivering illumination inside my sorrow?

O gods!一 Unveil to me the starlight on this wine-dark sea,

So my tears may bear up to them all the love I cannot give.

How the sky changes hue,

I once asked the wildflowers;

They said a zephyr wings to mantle

Souls wilted in wee small hours.

There, each day, they blossom

Ten thousand brilliant times,

Each shimmer a new shade

Between sunset and sunrise.

At dusk, their petals withdraw;

Light coalesced into midnight dew,

Twinkling in dark eternal valley,

Fragrant, gentle jewels.

How these wildflowers worship

Is with no heaven, nor any hell;

Their perfumed prayers ring, singing:

All is well, all is well.

I cannot help but think of green and blue.

Water lapping against sea-rocks, sure and many colored amidst the tide.

Pines' emerald fragrance filling my lungs with their sparkling damp.

The sky, reaching beyond the horizon to sow the void with morning glories.

Hues I feel course through my blood, echo within my beating heart, taste upon my bated breath—

I am in love with it. It is for me, always.

Your love is this hue.