Semele

1.
She thought it was her lover's godliness that blazed —
dull brown flutterer, first singed, then extinguished.
2.
But in the grave, it is her own flame
that smoulders, cannot be put out.
3.
In the Underworld, she is placed among the indifferent —
no fire here, only ashes drifting over grey-white silt.
Each step drains her, each breath bleaches her lungs:
her body is starting to lose its shape, become white-grey.
4.
No way out except by digging deeper.
In a circle of broken trees,
she scoops and claws through mud,
tears open a labyrinth of roots.
Into that dark space she presses
then writhes through tunnels until
she lies in their damp tightness.
The walls mould to her,
form a chrysalis of dream.
5.
A black goddess is smoothing clay
on her eyelids, laying firm hands
on Semele's brow and heart and loins.
"Be born from yourself,'
she says, enfolding her.
6.
The one to whom she has given birth
(whose names are Ecstasy, Chaos, Sacred Joy)
is walking beside her through the Elysian Fields.
They pass under cypress and alder —
in whose branches no birds sing,
through whose leaves no stars turn…
Near the pool of Memory, they pause by the aspen
— now silver, now black — that once was Leuce;
then they move upwards and out into the light.
7.
Semele's feet tread soft warm earth.
In a stream she dissolves the clay
masking her eyes, looks up at fields
of sunflowers and, above, a wave
of butterflies gathering and breaking
with wings of black and gold and flame.
Immersing herself, she renews her flesh,
puts on like a robe the day's
transparent silver,
carries within her
its burning centre.