Trustees of Boston University

Turnus ("Aeneid" XII)Author(s): Rosanna WarrenSource: Arion, Third Series, Vol. 3, No. 2/3 (Fall, 1995 - Winter, 1996), p. 174Published by: Trustees of Boston UniversityStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20163578 .

Accessed: 17/06/2014 18:28

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

.

Trustees of Boston University is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Arion.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 188.72.126.41 on Tue, 17 Jun 2014 18:28:39 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Turnus (Aeneid XII)

for Michael Putnam

Not lion, not wind, not fire, not sacrificial

bull, not in strength and sinew god

like, nor even as stag, Silvia's gentle

one, tame, tower-antlered, awash in the sweet blood

of his groin where the Trojan arrow struck?

no beast, no simile, Turnus, but a man alone

when your knees buckle and you look back

at the ashen city, the girl with her eyes cast down,

away. You've crashed to your side, the spear

has whispered its only message through the air.

And when you speak, and He seems inclined to hear, it's the woods that reply, the shadowed hilltops near

and farther, and what they speak is a groan

for a lost world, for leaflight, the childhood grove where the small stream stammered its rhymes in amber and green.

And if He pauses? If His sword hovers above

Your chest? Here's where you tear a hole in the poem,

a hole in the mind, here's where the russet glare

of ships aflame and the pyre and the amethyst gleam from the boy's swordbelt rise and roil in a blur.

We are trapped in meanings that circulate like blood.

The sword descends. And He who kills you is not

a myth, nor a city. His eyes searching yours could

be a lover's eyes. It was love He fought.

Rosanna Warren

This content downloaded from 188.72.126.41 on Tue, 17 Jun 2014 18:28:39 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions