Status Updates From Orpheus & Eurydice: A Lyric...

i read this on legentibus in latin/english translation so not really this... but i wanted to add it anyway since the right edition is not on goodreads.

Last of all it was loss
he sang, how like a vine
it climbs the wall,
sends roots and tendrils
inward,
bringing to the heart
of the hardest stone
the deep bursting emptiness of song.

All things go
downward.
Even the rocks
settle and sink,
even the flowers bow.

Maybe she loved me,
maybe not –
who knows?
Not even the gods
can see into
a human heart –
it’s that dark.

When I died, all Orpheus heard
was a small, ambiguous cry.
How could he know how free I felt
as I unwound the long bandage
of my skin and stepped out?

Is this what it’s like
to be born:
to be torn asunder?

If I had become a lake…
A mirror is all surface
but a lake has depths.
I would have drawn her in,
undine or water nymph,
alive inside me.

How can I celebrate love,
now that I know what it does?