Ovid in Tears

Ovid in Tears

Love is like a garden in the heart,
he said.
They asked him what he meant by garden.
He explained about gardens.
“In the cities,” he said,
“there are places walled off
where color and decorum are magnified
into a civilization.
Like a beautiful woman,” he said.
How like a woman, they asked.
He remembered their wives and said
garden was just a figure of speech,
then called for drinks all around.
Two rounds later he was crying.
Talking about how Charlemagne
couldn’t read but still made a world.
About Hagia Sophia
and putting a round dome
on a square base after
nine hundred years of failure.
The hand holding him slipped
and he fell.
“White stone in the white sunlight,”
he said as they picked him up.
“Not the great fires built on the edge
of the world.” His voice grew
fainter as they carried him away.
“Both the melody and the symphony.
The imperfect dancing
in the beautiful dance.
The dance most of all.”


Jack Gilbert

Posted over on The Paris Review