And a tenth part of Okeanos is given to dark night <br />a tithe of the pure water under earth <br />so that the clear fountains pour from rock face, <br />tears stream from the caverns and clefts, <br />down-running, carving woundrous ways in basalt resistance, <br />cutting deep as they go into layers of time-layerd <br />Gaia where She sleeps— <br /> <br /> <br />the cold water, the black rushing gleam, the <br />moving down-rush, wash, gush out over <br />bed-rock, toiling the boulders in flood, <br />purling in deeps, broad flashing in falls— <br /> <br /> <br />And a tenth part of bright clear Okeanos <br />his circulations— mists, rains, sheets, sheathes— <br />lies in poisonous depths, the black water. <br /> <br /> <br />Styx this carver of caverns beneath us is. <br />Styx this black water, this down-pouring. <br /> <br /> <br />The well is deep. From its stillness <br />the words our voices speak echo. <br />Resonance follows resonance. <br />Waves of this sounding come up to us. <br /> <br /> <br />We draw the black water, pure and cold. <br />The light of day is not as bright <br />as this crystal flowing. <br /> <br /> <br />Three thousand years we have recited its virtue <br />out of Hesiod. <br />Is it twenty-five thousand <br />since the ice withdrew from the lands and we <br />came forth from the realm of caverns where <br />the river beneath the earth we knew <br />we go back to. <br />Styx pouring down in the spring from its glacial remove, <br />from the black ice. <br /> <br /> <br />Fifty million years—from the beginning of what we are— <br />we knew the depth of this well to be. <br /> <br /> <br />Fifty million years deep —but our knowing deepens <br />—time deepens— <br />this still water <br /> <br /> <br />we thirst for in dreams we dread.<br /><br />Robert Duncan<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/styx-2/
