Hadrian Dying: a new poem by Charles Bryant

Hadrian dying. I am purged of all my youthful hubris. Forsaken sunlight filtering through glass. Memory glows in the enfeebled mind of age. Lasciviously dancing figures whirl in oriental ecstasy. His form apart among the rest. Godlike in shape and promise. Delicate. To garner while he gardens among greater blossoms. Superabundance of petal and of pistil. Sigils of reconstituted wholeness. Now long lost under water. With the Nile merged into the middle sea. May some white angelic being guide him. Aid whatever golden path he traverses through the bright and diamond lucid air to resurrected freedom. Absolved at peace. May he sense the horizons arising from our prison altars. Hear our prayer. May he gaze upon me kindly. Purged of almost every earthly passion. Stricken in body awaiting my release. My soul, that dispossessed and lonely wanderer, shivering guest of body's sepulchre, sets out once more upon an unknown road. He's sombre. I sense he will not smile again lest he enfold you in his living arms. Beloved son, Antinous, Lanuvium shall be our meeting place. And you, anew Sylvanus, master of the hunt and of my heart, shall with me range the wilderness. Shall with me trek the boar among the stars.