Severed Head Floating Downriver, 2016

Alice Oswald, British, born 1966 

from Falling Awake, 2016

 

It is said that after losing his wife, Orpheus was torn to pieces by Maenads, who threw his head into the River Hebron.

The head went on singing and forgetting, filling up with water.  Become a colander, it is floating.

 

 

 

Eurydice      already forgetting who she is

with her shoes missing

and the grass coming up through her feet

 

 

 

The white lady in a friend’s garden, Olive, Ulster County, NY.  With loving thanks.

 

searching the earth

                                   for the bracelet of tiny weave on her charcoal wrist

 

 

 

Japanese primula, Mt. Cuba, Delaware

 

 

the name of a fly or flower 

 

     

Winecup (Callirhoe involucrata). Jenkins Arboretum, Wayne, PA

 

 

                                                         already

forgetting who they are

they grow they grow

 

 

     

        till their bodies break their necks

 

Winterthur, Delaware

 

 

down there in the stone world

where the grey spirits of stones heave around uncertain of their limits

matter is eating my mind      I am in a river

 

 

                            Hydrangea along the river bank bowing to Orpheus’ head as it floats by 

 

 

I in my fox-cap

 

 

Drownings, 1975, mixed paper collage.

 Varujan Boghosian, American born 1926.  Courtesy of the artist exhibited in 2017 at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

 

 

floating between the speechless reeds

 

 

Virginia bunch-flower (Melanthium virginicum: lily family). Mt. Cuba, Hockenville, DE

 

I always wake like this being watched

 

 

Specimen unnumbered, 1981, silver gelatin print. 

David Lede, American born 1948.  Philadelphia Art Museum

 

 

already forgetting who I am

the water wears my mask  

                                               I call  I call

lying under its lashes like a glance

 

 

 Water sculpture, Chanticleer, Wayne, PA

 

 

if only a child on a bridge would hoik me out

 

 

The family’s former swimming pool, Winterthur, DE

 

 

there comes a tremor and there comes a pause

down there in the underworld

where the tired stones have fallen

and the sand in a trance lifts a little

                         it is always midnight in those pools

 

 

Bee balm and pickerelweed at the water’s edge in late June, Mt. Cuba, Hockenville, Delaware

 

 

iron insects engraved in sleep

 

 

Part of Fragile Earth, insects and mixed media.

Jennifer Angus, born Canada, 1961. Brandywine River Museum, Chadds Ford, PA in 2022/23

 

 

I always wake like this being watched

 

 

Part of In Midnight’s Garden,cochineal, various insects, mixed media, 2015.  

Jennifer Angus, born Canada, 1961. Smithsonian  Renwick Gallery, Washington, D.C. 

 

 

 

I always speak to myself

                     no more myself but a colander

 

 

 

 

draining the sound from this never-to-be                      mentioned wound

 

 

 

 

can you hear it

you with your long shadows

 

 

At the River’s Edge, 1998, oil on canvas. 

Emily Brown, American born 1943.  Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia

 

  and your short shadows

 

 

Shadow with Rubble Wall, 1988, pigments on silk with wood supports. 

Bettye Saar, American born 1926.  Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts

 

 

can you hear the severed head of Orpheus

 

 

Water sculpture, Chanticleer, Wayne, PA

 

 

no I feel nothing from the neck down

 

already forgetting who I am

the crime goes on without volition          singing in its bone

                     not I not I

 

 

   Water sculpture, Chanticleer, Wayne, PA

 

the water drinks my mind

as if in a black suit

                        as if bent to my books

 

     only my face exists sliding                                                 over a waterfall

 

 

Water sculpture, Chanticleer, Wayne, PA

 

 

and there where the ferns hang over the dark

 

 

Fernery at the Morris Arboretum, Philadelphia

 

 

and the midges move between mirrors

 

 

Glass Shadow, 2001, colour photographic prints mounted on archival matboard. 

David Slovic, 1948-2018, American.  Woodmere Museum of Art, Philadelphia

 

 

some woman has left her shoes

 

 

Flowers of the tulip poplar in early summer

 

 

                                 two crumpled mouths      which my voice searches in and out

 

 

my voice being water

which holds me together and also            carries me away

 

 

 

Water sculpture, Chanticleer, Wayne, PA

 

until the facts forget themselves              gradually like a contrail*

and all this week

       a lime-green light troubles                                                         the riverbed

 

 

Mt. Cuba, Hockessin, DE in late June

 

 

as if the mud was haunted by the wood

 

 

Mt. Cuba, Hockessin, DE in late June

 

 

this is how the wind works hard at thinking

 

 

 

Jenkins Arboretum, Wayne, PA in June

 

 

this is what speaks when no one                                                       speaks

 

 

*********

* contrail: condensation trail: trail of condensed water or ice crystal made by the engine of aircraft or rockets at high altitudes. 

Some trails last just a few seconds and some can persist for some time

The contrail of Orpheus has lasted thousands of years.

He was a mortal and not a god

and was not to know that this, the last gift of Apollo to him, would be so.