Diana


  In dark-lit passageways of girder-steel,
The subtle motion sings its weirding song,
Insinuating sounds, vibration sounds
Reverberate and dance throughout the dark.
The catwalks of the theatre wield and hold
Both us and life, forget our paling death.
  I knew her there: her limbs, her eyes of moon,
Her skin, a pale white-blue inside our dark.
I knew her, there--above! but could not speak
My mind's pervasive, glacial, gloaming thought:
Why was she here?  Why did immortal eyes
Upon our theatre play?  Why, goddess-moon?

  Then, flashing beam, a penetrating light,
It struck my face!  In one reflection there,
Its scattered light diffused throughout the dark;
The shadows of the theatre showed her perch.
She winced a bit; she did not move but stared
Upon my stare as if she knew, unasked, my thoughts.
  "Diana, goddess-moon, why did you come?
What sport, what life, what hunt in theatre-walls?"
She yet sat still, surveying all and none,
A face to drive the madness inwardly.
"O, answer me, Diana, huntress-night,
Divulge yourself to me, a mortal here.
Come, climb toward me, Diana, stay a while."
She lifted eyes, as if she'd speak to me,
But silent stayed, her form and life restrained.

  I thought some time, bereft of word or deed
To turn her active eye again to mine,
While natural pain accrued within my chest.
(For goddesses can work their subtle art:
A yearning strong upon the mortal man.)
  Again, I said, "O, goddess!  Come!  Descend!
Throw off for me your immortality,
And know with me the pain of mortal flesh
Which lives its time, the insignificance
Of dust.  Yet, passion-filled and strong, we live.
But only come to me, come closer still."

  But none.  No word, no light, no turn of head
To indicate a change of thought in her.
She simply looked, perhaps at me, perhaps
At something in the silent theatre-walls.
Perhaps we played, our stage above the stage;
For gods' lascivious whims and fancies, played--
Perhaps Diana was not she!  A nymph,
Perchance, sent to beguile and tempt my soul.
I knew not what, though looked again at her.
  I squinted then, then she was gone, dissolved
Into the blackness, gone.  I lost Desire 
As quickly as she came, reclaimed by Dark.