Swift Robbers

Oh. daughter

Oh. son

Where have you gone?

What have I done?

Who stole you off in that tempest night

With the ferocious hurricane's lashing

You were carried away

By storm-footed creatures, the harpies, they say

I came upon the rock of Crete

I purchased with my bloody feet

The cave of carrion and perfume

iris-marjoram-roses-lilies-violets-

sage-incense-myrrh-gravesoil-cumin

Bone ivory and spulling blood

Cleaving to shadows until I hear laughter

Hear the scraping of teeth or talons upon the stone

And see the broken nest that is their home

I see their faces pale with hunger

Maiden faces

Hypnotizing in their beauty, dark wonders

Repulsive in their stretched need

Raven and cinnmon hair tumbling over their breasts

Framing both in their horrific discord and downy necks

No song of sirens

Chittering of accentors

Chilling screams fo the owk

The howling of the whirlwind

Or dusky phantoms

For there is my daughter's aspect

Innocence in savagery

One is wearing her face

Or she is wearing their feathers

Neither narrative galls less

By faint light the iron pools of phosphorus

Or divine glow

They preen, flashing and pinning

And my son is dead, I know

A father senses deep within such genetic severing

It is in the sharpness of their teeth

The certain intelligence of their dark eyes

Their red, red tongues

These ministers of The Thunderer's wrath

An old many limps down the stony path

There is nothing can be done

Or undone

Oh.

My daughter.

Oh.

My son.