Vulcan to His Bronze
Having found you among the rocks,
I was happy.
You covered your head in a cinder-coloured shawl,
Crouching but not cowered. You had braved the passage
Of the chasms from your inconceivable home
To start life again. You had no desire to speak,
At first, in another language in which your name
Was unenunciable. Though you appeared timid
You were not afraid; and although all that emerged
Were pieces, you had not been broken, as I was
Broken, who fell to the earth for all of one day.
When
you had bathed in the furnace and showed your face,
Your skin was the first mirror I made of copper.
I was tempted not to look for fear you’d vanish,
And felt as those who walk on earth, looking westward,
When their last day’s reflection is held up to them,
Who can scarcely believe it could hold so much fire.
Your eyes were the grey of a white metal, tranquil
Like light coming down through the eye of the cyclone
That holds the oak for a minute still and silvered
Between the distant thunder and present lightning.
My
gift, shall I call you my bride or my sister?
When I armed the heroes, you were their swords’ sharpness,
You were their armour’s strength; the grace that made the arms
And the breasts of the beautiful ones yet more so,
The cunning that was in their locks and round their waists,
These were thoughts of you and of your intuition.
We wove the net that showed how beauty betrayed me,
And you have proved more kindly than the one I wed.
Holding you, I lose remembrance of my lameness,
Believing love will love my bed one day unbound.
John Gibbens, from The Promise
Go
to the Trading Post to buy The Promise
