Philomel Poem by Gert Strydom

At times a nightingale or swallow
visited me
singing sweetly

and with all the reckoning
that I did posses,
I tried to catch the words of it

and sorrowful was that gentle ode
telling about lovely Philomel
who did disappear

and how once she was young and beautiful,
so full of life, until her brother in law Tereus,
did his dirty deed
and then silenced her with a knife

and in the visiting bird there was something,
something lovely and sweet
while at times it pecked insects at my feet
as if Philomel, was coming back to life in it.


[Reference: "The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd" by Sir Walter Raleigh.]