Sunset is a washwoman's stream of rubia dyes And the crushed scales from the Kermes insect, While the loosened garments of life slide Over the ancient liquidity of the hills rolling As the mountains rolling as the seas rolling As the clouds rolling as the graves rolling Like eyes rolling back to sleep.
I am pressed for lullaby, Not the pillow-clap of thunder or the ether songs of Persephone, Biding by her asphodels with icen fingers from plum-colored hell.
But press my ear in my motherβs lap of ancient sun, Of peplos and himation and stola, And listen to the vines and bunched grapes And all of heaven sink in its commodiousness.
Press my ear to the sun-fed heart that flows To the furthest span of the cloth-seas of man and The solemn songings of the ever-deepening sky. My mother all along smoothing out the wrinkled sheet of sunlight.
The scales of the Kermes insect were used to make red dye in Ancient Greece and Rome.
Peplos and himation are Greek female clothing while stola is Roman.