To the Artist's Page                  To our home page

To Donald Ryburn's previous piece     To Donald Ryburn's next piece

Ancestral Mornings

Dawn's blindfolds interrupted
Young women in azure gowns
Who played dark flutes
Near night's windows.
This sun mocked
Vermeer's widow's hands,
Ridiculed the debts of bread.
Dawn's light, a black decay
Of broken mouths.
Dark blood of an evil God
Encroached golden night,
Destroyed warm moons.
As always, the hyacinth's hair
Yielded secret life 
To the malevolent clouds.
The Dead shook off stillness,
The beauty of childhood,
Became the corpses of the living.