Duet with Fragments (after Sappho)

Vincent Hostak

October 21, 2022

To me he seems like a god

as he sits facing you and

hears you near as you speak

softly and laugh - Fragment 31, Sappho

I listen  

to your sweet and

smiling speech as he sits facing you and

hears you near as you speak

softly and laugh

I’ll soon

let slip the aim

of every word They could not forget you

Poised beyond their reach

They are leaves

with precise and 

tender markings, 

each with meaning

but,

It is their greenness,

each fragment 

almond-shaped or 

in parcels warmly clustered 

I hear a sweet echo that jolts

the heart in my ribs

It is the flush

complexion of

the moon

I hear blushing sweet on a high branch

At the tip of the tallest tree

I can add

nothing, so

I listen I look at you

my voice is empty

Vincent Hostak is a writer and media producer from Texas now living near the Front Range of Colorado south of Denver. His recently published poems are found in the journals Sonder Midwest and the Langdon Review of the Arts in Texas and as a contributor to the TPA. He writes & produces the podcast: Crossings-the Refugee Experience in America.

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SOURCES:

Fragment 31, tr Willis Barnstone

To me he seems like a god

as he sits facing you and

hears you near as you speak

softly and laugh....

a sweet echo that jolts

the heart in my ribs...

I look at you

my voice is empty

 Fragment 105(a), tr Anita George

They could not forget you

Poised beyond their reach...

blushing sweet on a high branch

At the tip of the tallest tree