Sonnet to Orpheus

Don't erect a memorial. Just let the roses

bloom for his benefit every year.

It's Orpheus, after all. He metamorphoses

into this and this. No worry here

to find other names-once and for all

it's Orpheus when there's singing. He leaves and stays.

Isn't it already great, after all,

when he survives the rosebloom by some days?

Oh, that he must disappear for you to see it clear!

Even when he too is afraid that he might vanish.

As his word surpasses what's merely present here,

he already dwells where you do not accompany it.

The lyre's grate does not his hands admonish.

And his obedience is by his excess constituted.