Sappho Poem by John Lars Zwerenz

SAPPHO

Her dress, half open to an oceanic breeze,
She wanders as an angel in glorious Crete;
Among its ivory columns and bright colonnades
She composes mystic verse as the languid sun fades.

Near streams of Aphrodite the reeds beneath her feet
Speak only of dreams and effulgent trees.
Dionysus and Apollo vie
For the gem of her tender, regal hand.
As the sails of Salaminia near the cradle of the land
She skirts the silver coast beneath a cloudless sky.

And in the hills of Cythera Athena sighs
Envious of this priestess, for she does understand
How precious is the canvass of lauding lullabies
On which the painter crafts the Olympian hues
Of the coveted and holy gleaming deep blues
Found within the grottos of her coveted eyes.
And there by the gleaming, dreaming statues
As the final ray of daylight flees
Composing stanzas of eminent lines
She writes beneath the fronds of eros and its ecstasies
By a trellis where the roses are married to the vines.

And the poet says at night when the moon does ascend
Over florid, green boughs, wafting as they bend
The diamond sands shine, gilded and serene.
She skirts the coast, this august queen
When swallows sing in the courts as they rise.
And true peace brims in the zephyrs of the skies.

And as the brine scented sunset
Laced with thyme and mignonette
Of a solemn, redolent silhouette
Crowns the crimson nipples of her soft, fragrant breasts
She ponders on Elysium, reclining as she rests.

John Lars Zwerenz