Ode to Aura

𝐀 𝐏𝐨𝐞𝐦 — “[…] her breasts became the spouts of falling water, the stream was her body, the flowers her hair, her bow the horn of the horned River in bull-shape.” — Nonnus, Dionysiaca 48.936–942 (III pp. 490, 491).

Photo by Birmingham Museums Trust on Unsplash

I

Pity her fairest soul that then started to wheeze,
For in Sangarios her willed legacy was preserved;
So it was because Zeus turned her into a breeze —
And it occurred even though she was profaned.
To conquer eternal life and to make me her heir!
But who am I? Alas! Nothingness — the rising air.

II

Oh, our Aura! She was not prepared for this grim end;
She, as light as the wind, could not fortified her faith.
Oh, devouring Mother, life’s tyrannical lines transcend
And still to this day I see her in my dreams as a wraith.
Lord of my infinite sorrow and grief, whom to love?
This abandoned child moans like a mourning dove.

III

Let us not betray her memory and her faint shade!
Yells to hear, we trees lower our treetops to dirt —
If truth matters, we intended to unravel a serenade,
Thus we then chanted to her: ‘there is no time to flirt’.
Dionysus gave his scent when rubbed onto her wrists,
Yet she did not wish to be loved in those holy forests.

IV

Beloved land of Gods, how can I dwell in eternal flight,
Never to feel my weight on the mournful earth of men?
When I all alone soar under heaven that is truly bright,
I wonder if dearest Cybele could hold me now and then.
Poets better prove the existence of such a heart of mine,
In times of upheaval, being a poem is my dearer lifeline.

© Diana Dolea (2024 All Rights Reserved)

Ode to Eurydice

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