Eurydice

I thought I would blog about how beautiful these three stories are and how they complement each other, anecdote/introduction, poem, and myth.

By way of introduction, Gelert wrote on his blog:

"On the walls of the subway from Waterloo bridge is a poem
stencilled that I always stop to read between the buskers and
the walk upwards. I always wondered what it was, and tonight
I found it on someone's blog. It makes me sad."

Eurydice
by Sue Hubbard

I am not afraid as I descend,
step by step, leaving behind the salt wind
blowing up the corrugated river,

the damp city streets, their sodium glare
of rush-hour headlights pitted with pearls of rain;
for my eyes still reflect the half remembered moon.

Already your face recedes beneath the station clock,
a damp smudge among the shadows
mirrored in the train's wet glass,

will you forget me? Steel tracks lead you out
past cranes and crematoria,
boat yards and bike sheds, ruby shards

of roman glass and wolf-bone mummified in mud,
the rows of curtained windows like eyelids
heavy with sleep, to the city's green edge.

Now I stop my ears with wax, hold fast
the memory of the song you once whispered in my ear.
Its echoes tangle like briars in my thick hair.

You turned to look.
Seconds fly past like birds.
My hands grow cold. I am ice and cloud.

This path unravels.
Deep in hidden rooms filled with dust
and sour night-breath the lost city is sleeping.

Above the hurt sky is weeping,
soaked nightingales have ceased to sing.
Dusk has come early. I am drowning in blue.

I dream of a green garden
where the sun feathers my face
like your once eager kiss.

Soon, soon I will climb
from this blackened earth
into the diffident light.

(see: http://www.suehubbard.com)

Juliana Podd wrote on Eurydice in Encyclopedia Mythica, and I paraphrase:
In Greek Mythology, Eurydice and Orpheus were young lovers, who were practically inseparable. So enmeshed was their love that they could not live without each other. They spent their time frolicking together through the meadows, where one day Eurdice was happily running when a serpent bit her and she died from the bite. She immediately descended to Hades.
The great Olympian god Apollo who in many ways was the god of music was Orpheus' father and so Orpheus was blessed with musical talents. Orpheus was so saddened by the loss of his love that he composed music to express the desperate emptiness which pervaded his every breath and movement. He found so little meaningful, without Eurydice that he decided to petition Hades, overseer of the underworld. Hades' heart was hard as steel, as befitting his position. Many mourning souls approached Hades to beg for loved ones back and as many were turned down. But Orpheus' music was so sweet and so moving that it softened the steel hearted heart of Hades himself. Hades granted permission to Orpheus to take Eurydice back to the earth's surface to enjoy the light of day. There was one condition--Orpheus was not to look back as he ascended. He was to trust that Eurydice was following behind him. It was a long journey back up and just as Orpheus had almost finished the last part of the trek, he turned and looked behind him to make sure Eurydice was still with him. At that very moment, she was snatched back because he had not trusted that she was still there. So, when you hear music which mourns lost love, it is Orpheus' spirit who guides the hand of the musicians playing it.

P.S. Sue Hubbard's poem Eurydice is a sad and beautiful poem. And what a fitting place to stencil this verse. I'm pretty sure that the subway is a metaphor for Hades which is not our Hell but the Underworld of Greek Mythology. And I think that the poem is about lost love, like the Greek myth of Eurydice and Orpheus, a beautiful love story. With the rain and the train I am reminded of that old movie "A Man and A Woman" where they part, perhaps for good, and there are raindrops like teardrops on the window and when she gets off the train he is there and they embrace and the music builds.