and next…

i’ve queued a bunch of posts about black holes.

they are all quotes from the hubble telescope site (each quote will include a citing link)

…but you might prefer to read them metaphorically…

I think they might be all for Orpheus.

—E

Eurydice Underground:

Dear Orpheus,

You’re still singing but always the same songs.  The songs that moved stones and silenced beasts.  

The stones pile up.  How will you get out?

The stag, the great bear, the wild dogs, gather. 

Make new songs.  Songs that crack stones.  Hear the beasts howl, bellow, rut in accompaniment. 

The new songs, I can hear them.  They come from the place we are supposed to go.  A shining cypress stands above its reflection in a deep lake you must not stop there.  Go further, into the gloom, where water moves quickly over black stones, clear and chilling.

When a man leaves his soul under the earth, a pack of women will sniff him out.  That is how it will end.  Torn apart, with bare hands and dull teeth, limb by bloody limb.  When a man abandons his soul, the furious women do not pity.  They are hungry and you, you stagger.  You smell of absence.  It is hard to explain—something like lilies held in your bleeding hands all charred by a chemical fire.  See how you clutch your lyre, knuckles clawing over the strings?

I would assist you, but I’m stuck down here.  Where you left me. 

Do not tarry.

Love,

Eurydice

careful

Withhold.  Recede.  This is the giving time, the time of quiet and contemplation.  Be mistress of your thoughts, of your hours. You have only these hours and whatever you can make of them. Recede into the sure light of your own encompassment. Encompass yourself in your littlest hour.  Love.  What is love?

Withhold.  Recede. Learn stillness without wanting. Go underground. Put a stone beneath your tongue, a bar of gold in your hands and bury yourself.  Propitiate the underworld.

Careful, Eurydice.  Or a story will be told in which you figure only peripherally.