after ‘Orpheus and Eurydike’, choreographed by Pina Bausch
Sleep
Noise shut off, and the heat
and choking fumes stopped. They had passed
another gate. All was cool grass,
soft light, trees, water somewhere, or was it
bird song? And here and there in meadow grass lay
clothed shapes in simple shifts: men, women.
The children not huddled, but stretched at ease.
or quiet in reveries.
And there were those who lost definition,
skin-colours merging with the earth;
hip-ridge, rib-cage eroding down,
a gleam of glorious hair gone or going to — where? —
birds nest building.
His guide said, What do you see here? He answered,
‘The soft sifting down of the self.’
Then there was the next gate,
ornate, and set in a mossy wall.
michael9murray 