2003-10-22 - 1:30 a.m.
Sonnet to Orpheus
review of Orpheus Chamber Orchestra at the Esplanade, 2003
This last stretch, with Eurydice at arm's length, tires
from a grief held too long against his own dying.
Soon he will trace for Dante steps back to the living.
Till then, memory provides the first quagmire
before doubt, to remember is to realise what will expend
faith, that evidence of the real yet unseen.
Restrained in hope from fear of hope he begins
softly singing to the swirl of Styx's dark melanin
an idyll as escape from the hiding place memory's been.
Each rise in step provoke his mind's fire.
His feet whipped night's ground in dances each lighter
than the former, till he encored at the keen
line of dusk to find his memory strong, his faith faithless ether.
