Philemon and Baucis Renew Their Vows

by C.K. Williams 

                        Philemon:  “O darling I must ask

                                                   why all these tears?”

Baucis:  “O nothing darling, nothing,

             simply the accumulation of so many years.”

           

P:  It is true

                         we grow gnarled.        The marble

            has fallen into disrepair.   It lays in broken clumps

       and weeds push up in the evening.

B:   “Yes.  Rings expand year by year from our trunks.”

                       

P:  I remember us poor and

                    eating beans and radishes,

                eggs cooked over a small fire in the hovel near the outskirts of town,

                                                                 surviving by bread which

                                             was mostly crust.  Our roof was

                                   made of dry reeds that whistled in

                                          the nightwind fleecing down

                                                                             the Phrygian hills.”

Zeus:   “Raising you two from the privations of the poor,

                       Still you let pass the past through memory’s door!”

B: (to Philemon)  “Our skin is wrinkled

                  Over us so rough.  It is dry

              And rustles like beetle legs.”

                        P:  “We have been here so many years

                   Silent as oak and linden.

                           Many peoples have sat with us

                 In the shade, eating grapes and seedcakes from Crete,

                     Bread dipped in olive oil.”

B:  “We have been weathered by the sea

                         Far distant over hills; the

                Brine comes over the rocks and parches our throats.”

                        P:  “Yes, we are always thirsty, but

                                          Are we not entwined?

B:  “Perhaps.

                       Our limbs so different and flimsy still clasp.

                                                That is not so bad.”

Zeus:  Day after dust, dust after day,

                 The sun shall beat not less.

             Though moisture comes, you’ll be but clay,

                  No more hold hope for best.