As I lie still,
the shallow stream's astir,
dizzyingly shimmering.
Argus has not so many eyes,
lulled asleep
beneath the buttercups.*
Looking through
the standing wavelets,
I remember our love-making.
Buttercups are compressed
by cows (waggling ears
at slow flies),
ambling over
to slurp muddy
and devour the water-forget-me-nots.
Thank you, shambling beasts;
now I cannot confuse
grief with a flower.
.........................
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argus_Panoptes
"Argus Panoptes (Ἄργος Πανόπτης), guardian of the heifer-nymph Io and son of Arestor,[1] was a primordial giant whose epithet, "Panoptes", "all-seeing", led to his being described with multiple, often one hundred, eyes. The epithet Panoptes was applied to the Titan of the Sun, Helios, and was taken up as an epithet by Zeus, Zeus Panoptes. "In a way," Walter Burkert observes, "the power and order of Argos the city are embodied in Argos the neatherd, lord of the herd and lord of the land, whose name itself is the name of the land."[2]
Argus was Hera's servant. His great service to the Olympian pantheon was to slay the chthonic serpent-legged monster Echidna as she slept in her cave.[6] Hera's defining task for Argus was to guard the white heifer Io from Zeus, keeping her chained to the sacred olive tree at the Argive Heraion.[7] She charged him to "Tether this cow safely to an olive-tree at Nemea". Hera knew that the heifer was in reality Io, one of the many nymphs Zeus was coupling with to establish a new order. To free Io, Zeus had Argus slain by Hermes. Hermes, disguised as a shepherd, first put all of Argus's eyes asleep with spoken charms, then slew him by hitting him with a stone, the first stain of bloodshed among the new generation of gods.[8]"
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Tapestries
PoetryPoems from 1978 onwards. These poems are in a different style from the later MajorSeventh, the earlier ones often with more of an Eastern-influenced cadence. Later, they vary a lot in form and style.
