108

The Beautiful Sea-Green Hunters

The beautiful sea-green hunters

that hunted at Pentecost

and lost their names to the holy fire

are reborn in the forests of my hair

while the corn king dies by his own straw hand

nameless in that greater Name.

For peasant souls it’s a drunken myth

that the white swan wings from the black swan’s pyre

while the Evoi chokes in the sated throat.

But beautiful sea-green hunters shout

above the criers of Bacchic blood,

and the gilded boar and their golden spears

glint like fire in new sunlight

that flowers from my greening hair.