Francesca Leader – Lost Words

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You are re-writing Sappho,

and the entire library of Alexandria,

on the thinnest paper

history has ever seen,

recycled, read and un-read, written and forgotten.

Bone and papyrus and carbon and silk;

Your page is the gray of God’s mind,

both palimpsest and pentimento.

You are re-writing Sappho,

ten thousand lines

capturing life and love, hate and death,

in a heart-deep tongue

infinitely older than ancient Greek.

No one can say anything never said before,

nor write anything never written,

so your words are Sappho’s words

as much as they are yours, or mine, or anyone’s.

You are writing on what was, long ago, Sappho’s skin;

you are drawing the poems, upon her and from her,

with a cursor-shaped needle, keystroke by stitch.

And if you love her, you will not grieve,

for grief stops us,

and if you love her, you will not stop

until all, all the lost voices

and all the lost words

rise from the earth.