Pieces of Gilgamesh

As promised the other day--a few pieces I translated from Gilgamesh, arguably the world's oldest story. 





The Weight



My friend lay down in death. 

I wept for him seven nights

and all the days between. 

They say it's like a sleep, 

but it's not; the skin relaxes

in death, forgets to suspire. 

You kiss it and it's cold. 

Nonetheless I prayed he'd wake. 

I kept the watch and made my prayers,

and on the seventh day 

a maggot crawled from his mouth. 



In fear of death I walk 

the landscape and the night. 

The fate of my friend's a weight on me. 

How can I decline to see?

The friend I love has turned to dirt. 

The same is waiting for me. 





The Crossing

[This one is a repeat; it appeared here last year.]



In the Boatman's barge repose

living things of stone. 

I seize the barge,

I fight the writhing things I find within, 

I feel their venomous saliva on my hands

as they turn and turn within my grip,

as they try to strike. I bend them to my will. 

I pin their wings behind their backs.

I kneel and trap a writhing heart

beneath my knee. The Boatman

surrenders to my will.

He takes me across wide waters;

we move the barge with shafts

I've cut from the ancient cedars,

the wood white within the bark 

and red within the white.

The splinters scratch my hands. 

We cross the waters

no one can cross. 





Instead of This Journey



Eat berries verging on overripe;

let their liquor stain your beard. 

Dance, though your steps be clumsy;

let the motion make you new.  

Sing, though half the words you know

have sunk into the mud of memory. 

Bathe in hot water—its steam the ghosts

of snakes casting their skins in air,

a viperous migration of your cares

into nothing. Dress in clean silk;

let the hot wind whip your hair dry. 

Let the child take your hand—

his small hand holding two fingers of yours.

At night make love to your wife.

In the morning lie luxurious 

in the scent of it. 





After the Deluge



All the world was water outside our boat. 

I let loose a dove, and the dove flew forth. 

It came back before the dark, 

for nowhere could it land. 

I let loose a swallow, and the swallow flew forth. 

In twilight the swallow returned, 

having found no place to land. 

I let loose a crow, and the crow flew forth. 

It found a world wet with receding waters,

it found drowned bodies glistening and ripe. 

The crow ate and never returned. 

When the crow did not return,

I poured wine for the gods. 

I burned sugar cane and cedar boughs,

I let the smoke rise.

The starved gods gathered 

like flies to feast. 



The Mother of the gods came down. 

From corpses of the drowned

she drew forth the iridescent flies.

They make love on the wing;

the Sky God himself devised them

as carnal jewels for his wife,

the Mother of the gods. 

And the mother said,

Let me never forget this death.

She feasted with her fellows

on the smoke. 





I'll post more next week.