r/u_immortellesPoet37

Fall Poem: Ariadne’s Song

Oh, fall, oh fall, not quite the downfall
of my vitality and youth,
caught in the deluge of dried, expired letters
not dared to be sent,
the trees belatedly dispatching with the winds,
signed in whispers: with love, remember me, hope to…
P.S.—
ah, even they forget the lines one saves and savors for post scriptum…

This tumbling fall, where the sky is transparent,
lucid like your eyes,
as the ethers of togetherness,
so tender, the belief
caught in
forgetfulness and forgiveness…

And yet time moves on,
the time allotted by the fall,
till it fades my tresses with white-grey shades of concealing snowfalls…

Fall onto these luscious carpets
of dried foliage, prickly wool,
rains wash the memories clean of rumination:
The deadly Minotaurs waiting for their slayer,
armed with silver-glinting pen instead of dagger—their Theseus.

Be done!
Don’t make me wait too long!
Drag these monsters onto
the spreads, bleached by the sun.
Extract their purple juice and scribble
words that save the world
from madness of the fall!
Make me
write in brooding blood on stubbornness and fortitude.
To spin the scarlet thread she so lovingly rendered to the Hero
to emerge from labyrinthine past
To remember those
who keep us in their prayers,
as sun-chasing storks,
bound to return, carry
the unfaded echoes home
to the laps of Gods.

© Tamar Shengelia, 2026. All rights reserved.

Illustrations:

Ariadne abandoned by Theseus, 1778
Angelica Kauffman RA (1741 - 1807)

Ariadne in Naxos - Evelyn De Morgan (1855–1919) - The De Morgan Foundation