Is the Pontos wine-dark or is my shirt?
Did Achilles have athlete's foot?
Is Scott of the antarctic a hero or is Odysseus a cheat?
Was Charon at the helm inebriated?
How many times did Tiresias come as a woman?
Have I loved you?



LOVE CONSTANT BEYOND DEATH

Perhaps whatever final shadow that 
the shining day may bring could close my eyes, 
and this my soul may well be set aflight
by time responding to its longing sighs;

but it will not, there on the farther shore
its memory leave behind, where once it burned:
my flame the icy current yet can swim, 
and so severe a law can surely spurn. 

Soul by no less than a god confined, 
veins that such a blazing fire have fueled, 
marrow to its glorious flames consigned: 

the body will abandon, not its woes; 
will soon be ash, but ash that is aware; 
dust will be, but dust whose love still grows. 

Francisco de Quevedo
(©Alix Ingber, 1995)