Aphrodite and Other Poems
by
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Point Udall, St. Croix
At Point Udall, the earth
casts aside her cloak
and bares her jagged breast
to the stroking of the sea,
the sea, whose body in
its rise and fall upon
her, breaks up into fingers
that caress her crevices
and gently then recede.
How many million years
has he kissed her with his spray,
embraced her with his surf,
and with his boiling spume,
flooded her every crack
and fissure, stormed and raged,
then licked her tenderly
in a calm, and still has yet
to smooth her stony heart?
1981-1995
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Acrocorinth
We lay in Aphrodite's fallen temple,
chanting with our sharp breath a hymn of praise
to the Mighty Goddess who lifts us up
as lords of love, in our skin the scattered stones
erected, in our ears the passion of the wind,
from our mouths the cries of gulls that wheel above
our landscape of desire, its olive groves,
its naked rock, its streams and deep ravines.
We reconstruct the temple in our flesh
and improvise half-remembered rituals
a thousand priestesses kept holy here,
and in our eyes see ourselves reflected
small as the sun is mirrored in a drop of dew
or endless generations in the seed.
We lay in Aphrodite' s fallen temple,
and while our blood beat time, seven youths
and seven girls, their robes swirling in the wind
like mist, their limbs transparent as the sky,
joined hands and danced with poppies in their hair.
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About the Book
As its title suggests, Aphrodite and Other Poems, is an exploration of the mythological dimension of sexual experience in an attempt to reinvest its now profane character with its ancient sacrality. The mythological symbols are treated as universals that resonate at some deep level of consciousness whether or not the reader is acquainted with the stories. These poems exemplify the view that poetry is a sensual and, primarily, a musical art while it, of course, must also maintain a basic standard of intelligibility that does not strain the reader’s interpretive powers to the point of exhaustion. My primary sources of inspiration have been my muses and the landscapes in which I have lived, in particular, Greece.
About the Author
Dana Richardson is a composer of contemporary art music whose works have been broadcast on many classical music stations in the United States, as well as in Greece. He has recently completed a piano concerto for left hand, and works for French horn and piano, and solo saxophone. He has taught music history and theory in Athens, Greece, and at Fredonia College and New York University from which he holds a doctorate in theory and composition. This is his first book.