According to some, an army
Marching or cavalry charging,
Or a raiding fleet under sail,
Is the loveliest sight
On this black earth, but I say:
Whatever one loves most is beautiful . . .
SAPPHO (FROM FRAGMENT 16)
Sappho, you started it all off
With your pithy remark:
“Whatever one loves most
is beautiful.”
Until you
Spoke up, who knew
The personal
And passionate heart
Was what created value?
Who knew we each
Had power
To say what mattered?
All around you, the guys
Jabbered on and on
About how awesome
Marching armies are,
How their hearts fluttered
When the cavalry charged.
But you had the nerve
To disagree
And insist on details
Both tender and specific—
What William Blake
Would later
Call the “minute particulars.”
Not for you, those things
Hugely violent
That shook the earth
And only existed to hurt,
But rather what was intimate,
Personal, scaled to the human:
Your daughter Kleis, “golden
as a flower,”
Or Anactoria, your lover—
The way her hips
Moved when she walked, her smile.