Three Poems by Eric Brown

 

Black Squirrels in the Dooryard

 

They seemed fit for Mirkwood, these black squirrels

At the feeder, biting at birds in snarling quarrels,

 

And no ornithomancer worth their bones could fail

To read portents in the ravening, rampant travail.

 

Sciurids dark as caverns, gorging on safflower,

Torrid in hunger and in a desperate hour,

 

Means famine, a Fimbulwinter of ceaseless dearth

That drives the beasts from their shadowy berths,

 

And quails the gamesome light-feathered flocks

Into scattered subdual, pointless pecking of rocks.

 

Here are no creatures frost-winter fattening,

Nor leisurely grazing, but straight seed battening

 

Into the gullets, as if the apocalypse were starting

In the fur of their tenebrous tails, sun-blotting

 

Like clouds of locusts from the smoke of Abaddon,

Until swarming with seed-lust they cover the lawn.

 

Tipping their ebon caps, the chickadees flee

And the nuthatches spill their craven speech,

 

That once Sigurd heard, his heart’s blood pounding.

Scattered shells, hard-bitten, in the yellow mounding

 

Grass are all that’s left of their famished massacre,

Shrill scraps for the midden found centuries after.

 

Small wonder that later the seasons come so cold,

Scant of acorns, of birdsong, empty promises of old.

 

 

Ode to Charon

 

The Pomptine marshes with their legions

Of flies, the skiffs that drift in slow repose

Hauled by mules through mallow reeds,

Where Syrinx hides her charms from Pan,

And the thick-thighed bargemen of Appius,

Croaking drunkenly for their lost loves

In time with the crickets and frogs,

All summon you to mind, Ferryman.

 

While others will drop their obols

Into your silent boat at the last minute,

I settle my debts far in advance. 

Before your eyes effulgent, bowed neck,

Or your hoary beard drift into view

Through the fen-mucked mists, before

I catch myself panicked and wayward,

Slipping on the muddy banks of Acheron,

 

Let me pay my offering.  No budding kid,

Slit in forest glade with the priestess’s knife,

Hailing Faunus and his hoof-footed beasts,

Nor fatted oxen skewered with golden blade

On the altar of Neptune’s salt-sea temples,

Nor sweet-smelling frankincense, stimulating

Cypris as she roves through the sacred fields

Of Tamasus, anathema to the mephitic coves

You row by instinct.

 

For the drear of a lightless domain suits you

Best, stagnant waters that breed pestilence,

Teeming with unseen leeches starving,

Toilsome trafficking of the dazed dead,

Whose numbers are never none.  And

When war and famine strike, how laden

Your craft, how even the weightless shades

Crowd and caterwaul over the gravity

Of their impending situation.

 

No sprinkling of stars, no moon, no beacon,

But darkness upon darkness, where the crows

That feast on the fallen follow them

Into the underworld, and blacken further

The murky air and Stygian shadows.

Choleric Charon, who refused Xanthias,

But suffered in adamantine chains

Infernal imprisonment for Hercules

Barging his way into Tartarus,

It is clear that craven Eros avoids you.

For Psyche, once your pretty fare,

Sought fruitlessly for him through the grim

Channels and dismal lands of the fallen.

 

Listen, then, to mortal advice,

Before fear and trembling steal my voice.

Whenever next you guide the one

For whom abysmal Hades cleft the earth,

Persephone in her queenly robes,

Dyed purple with pomegranate,

Beseech her with your lonely tongue

To do you service when she returns above

To her meadows pied and air purified,

Cavorting again with the daughters

Of Tethys: streamlined Galaxaura,

Boyish Chryseis, Tyche and Electra,

Or Melobosis plucking crocuses.

 

Claim one of the Heleonomi,

Adorers of swamps and quagmires:

Phasida, with her pale Naiad skin,

Reddened ever with mosquito welts. 

Even better, slow-moving Marica,

Enchantress of the brackish Liris,

Or luminescent Limnoreia, who haunts

The saltmarshes aglow, and lures lost

Souls for pleasure, seducing with her

Dancing, drowning vapors. No strangers

To scum and slime, these Hydriades

Would scarce be appalled at the viscid

Furnishings of Orcus.

 

Ghastly Styx in her silver caverns perhaps

Misses spear-slinging Pallas, and craves

Expanding her horde of night-suckled gods,

Cratus and Nike, Zelus and Bia, favoured

Of Jove.  Or if the oath-maker balks,

Try Eione, that Nereid fond of sea-strands,

Like you drawn to littoral pleasures,

Or Dexamene, strong enough to paddle your oar.

Benthic Ceto already looks fondly on

Sea-monsters, and dwells in the deep ink

Of the ocean.  I have heard Acheron himself

Lies with caliginous Orphne in abyssal pits

And tenebrous bowers.  And a lesser

Ferryman, Phaon, it is said, once kindled

Bittersweet burning in Sappho, poet

Whose passions made even the gods blush.

You are older but sturdy, still striking

In appearance, and no nymph would find

A deity more dependable, who has nothing

But time on his hands.

 

And when your consort skims alongside

Stirring the fetid pools, or clambers over

Your gunwales, embracing your ragged

Bones, think kindlier on those you have

Inherited as freight because of Love’s

Killing shafts.  Pilot them to happier fields,

For I no doubt will be among them.

 

 

Hymn to Mintha

 

Born of the wailing river, your suitors were

Never many.  Ceaseless grief and gurgling

Lamentations were no aphrodisiac,

Even in Tartarus, and the hard iron

Chambers of Aidoneus came as relief

And incitement. Furtive at first, always

In darkness, you only kissed him timidly,

The way a blind cavefish puckers against

Submerged stones.  But the underworld king

Was sick of shadows, disencumbered

From flesh, stripped by blood-soaked Keres,

And soon, Mintha, he pressed his raven lips

Against your lips, and turned your Naiad

Nibbles into a devouring.  How the shades

Of Hades envied your comings and goings,

New moans along the banks of Cocytus.

 

How could one who had held your throat

So firmly, slid his tongue so deeply, ridden

You with such violence, ever have sought

Another warm body for his bed?  And yet,

There she was one day.  Fresh from meadows

Decked with violets and hyacinth, lupin

And forget-me-nots, Proserpina enthroned.

She lacked your firmness, but her shape

Was comely, her eyes an inescapable indigo,

And her hair like a dark fire, purple flame.

Still, you haunted the palace of Dis, waited

For him to tire of her luster.  And word was

She would not be long for the underworld.

Who could blame you for pointing out her

Defects, or for storming through Avernus,

Decrying the queen of hell? Her lord still

Had scratches of love down his back

From your indelicate nails.

 

But your complaints escaped the earth, vented

Through fissures and catacombs, spewed

As lava from winds cyclonic beneath the marl

Of Aetna. There Ceres lingered still,

Incensed already at the rape and enthrallment

Of her daughter. No surprise, then,

When the corn-crowned goddess stamped out

Your jealous cries, and with reverberation

Sent them back to the source, a sonic blast

That billowed the stagnant Styx and crumbled

The caverns of Acheron, grinding you to dust,

Chalky and dry, easily swept aside.

 

Pluto’s bride felt pity enough, transforming

And casting you forth all at once, her husband

Unflinching as you penetrated the upper world

Green-leafed, rhizomes creeping under soil.

Now at Plutonian gates, where the noxious

Breath of Cerberus exhales killing mists,

Sweet-smelling mint ever combats those

Infernal fumes.  And the Temple at Pylos

welcomes you, inviolate and inextirpable.

Eric Brown is Professor of English at the University of Maine Farmington.  His publications include the books Milton on Film and Insect Poetics as well as essays on Renaissance literature, film adaptation, and animal studies.  His poems have recently appeared or are forthcoming in The Ekphrastic Review, Carmina Magazine, and The Frogmore Papers (shortlisted for the 2023 Frogmore Poetry Prize).

These three poems are part of a longer project reimagining the lost verses of Helvius Cinna (85-44 BCE), a contemporary of Catullus.