THE SINGERS CHANGE, THE MUSIC GOES ON

No one really dies in the myths.

No world is lost in the stories.

Everything is lost in the retelling,

in being wondered at. We grow up

and grow old in our land of grass

and blood moons, birth and goneness.

A place of absolutes. Of returning.

We live our myth in the recurrence,

pretending we will return another day.

Like the morning coming every morning.

The truth is we come back as a choir.

Otherwise Eurydice would be forever

in the dark. Our singing brings her

back. Our dying keeps her alive.

*

From “The Best American Poetry 2001,” edited by Robert Hass (Scribner Poetry: 288 pp., $30)