Variation on a Theme: The Transformation of Psyche

It was pain that lifted her off the ground.
With each that she suffered, she found
she was shedding off just a little more
skin, flesh, bone,
and all the weight they came with;

mind and more mind, she shut out,
and less and less they became
until her body mirrored glass--
clear and solid, ready
for reflection, to break
into pieces, into fragments
of likenesses, shrapnels of soul,
to shatter into

possibility.

Yet in resembling glass--
and parallels are limitless--
she only resembled glass;
for it is true what the gods say: nothing
is as it is. Fragile, she was strong;
and she was strong only as far
as she allowed herself to break.

This, Psyche understood, to the heart
alone does the soul succumb;
and in understanding, she shattered,
shattering into all that she could become--
hard surface and quiet stream,
air, dream, a pair of butterfly wings.

She brushed past distances,
erasing them; she flowed into healing tears,
became sky, abyss, vastness;
she refracted light and shadow,
catching glimpses of the self coccooned
in self;

she began to comprehend
disappearance; she discovered
weightlessness. Lightness

and light started tapping
at her edges, her edges giving
way and giving way to let
the light in, gentle ripples, sliver, golden;
mysteries, translucent, small
until felt;
wisp-like miracles, silent
until known.

Later, standing near the water
in trance, trembling, transformed,
she grew porous with brilliance
and became the word
Luminous.

Variation on a Theme: Psyche

Three tasks, she had fulfilled,
and with the last triumph she felt weakest,
because mortal, slight and barefoot;
yet about to earn what the books
henceforth called her--the Goddess
of the Soul.

The first of her burdens:
after loss, to look upon a mountain of the seeds of the everyday,
difficult tomorrows to be sifted through and lived,
while time goes with agonizing slowness,
fatal for the lonely;
to gather, and with a clear eye, for
one mistake leads back to the beginning,
back to despair.

But she does as she must:
she rearranges her broken life and
lifts it to the sky,
"I have gathered the grains into neat, perfect piles."

Unfazed, Aphrodite demands the golden fleece
and Psyche trembles, terrified
of the wrath of the rams.

But Zeus, hearing her prayers,
sends forth the mighty eagle of perspective which,
with its gift of perfect sight, guides Psyche to triumph:
Anger dims once the sun sets, she whispers again and again
while, with patience borne only of love, she awaits twilight
for the rams to graze by the tranquil river,
and she gathers the precious thread.

Golden fleece offered with trembling hands,
Psyche is next commanded to bring a flask
from the Waters of Forgetfulness--
but how, she cries, how does one forget?
Forgiving alone was difficult enough.
Yet she sets to task, battling with her sorrows, listening
to the voices she had once drowned
and now letting them flow into wisdom;
she confronts a montage of pain,
finally seeing what they had to teach--

until she had filled the flask,
until she had forgotten.

But now, the last test of courage:
to brave death and return alive.
"I have done enough," was her woeful cry,
but the brave will brave love, and so we find
Psyche in Hades' realm, aided by the knowledge
offered by the compassionate:
"Coins for Charon to row you through The River Styx,
bread for three-headed Cerberus".

Curbing fear into her fist, Psyche plunges the impossible:
to be human and face the harrowing depths of death,
to draw wisdom from one's solitude
and shine a light of hope--however little, however flickering
between faith and despair--
in the darkness of a wretched life,
to grasp the hands of grace.

She emerges from a death-like sleep
and there, Eros waits,
home to all the dreams she had woven
as child, girl, woman.
"Awaken, My Love."

Four tasks, Psyche had fulfilled,
and the prize was immortality:
For love gifts us with the wings of courage,
placing the sky within reach.