For you I would delve into the blistering sands
and face the sandstorms of ancient Egyptian lands,
dare the trek to Duat, realm of the bandaged dead,
where kas fly in spiraling flocks overhead
and I would worry bones against the Jackal-faced god
to find and raise you from that land, fleeing abroad.
For you I would walk beneath the onyx vaulted skies
of stone-cut Mesopotomia, where the ziggurats rise,
and I would drain the Euphrates River utterly dry,
digging deep for the caverns of Kur, where shades lie,
lorded over by Lion-headed Nergal, his furious roar
sounding as I raised you toward life once more.
For you I would sail to Styx-split Tartarus
and wager grim-grinning Hades to barter thus
as Orpheus had done, with Persephone’s favor,
leading you beyond Lethe and Cerberus, once again to savor
the warmth of sunlight, of happy life in the open air
of the Mediterranean—beyond Death’s dark lair.
For you I would ascend the lofty ladder to Heaven
and beg at the throne of God, arrayed by the Seven
of Seraphim and wash the feet of Christ, repenting my wrongs,
don a halo, a pair of wings, add my voice to their choir songs,
or be at peace in Purgatory, or even the hottest pits of Hell,
looking up at you as you fly beyond the luminous veil.
But this is not myth, nor a story, nor a happy ending,
and whether it be by prayers, sacrifice, or moral mending
I cannot exhume you from that echoing tomb of Time—
it is such an unwelcoming and distant chthonic clime.
What hope have I to rescue you from where gods, themselves, die,
buried in the Past, that dusty necropolis of sarcophagi?
Tangleroot And Tressknot 