Circe’s Lament
by Lauren Raine
Art by John Waterhouse
“Circe Invidiosa” 1892
I cannot recall how it happened.
I was on fire, I do remember that
in my imagination a tropical sunset
enflamed, exultant, and for one shining
Hallelujah of an hour everything I touched ignited.
You squeal your indignation through ruddy snouts:
It was a misfire, I swear it.
In the splendor of my exuberance
this was nothing I anticipated.
Tell your handsome Captain
I will petition the Gods this very day.
I have grown old, absent minded in my solitude
my spells go astray.
Be patient, dear ones. Meditate upon this dark,
Fertile squalor of sensuous mud you find yourself so horizontal in.
This low rooting through an odiferous cosmos of fragrant compost.
Are you so undone by the base pleasure of it all?
This nosing, snorting self-knowing,
the delight of a half fermented carrot?
Never a sow smelt so sweetly fecund before
nor was love so simple.
Surely we have become sleepy, half-drowned by the lethargy
of two-legged dignity. Consider this, if you will,
an interlude of primordial grace.