Eurydice

• Sophie Berkelmans, Grade 9, St Francis Xavier College - Senior Campus
• Poetry
• 2022

Excellence Award in the 'Summertime Fun ONLINE' competition

You fly like a songbird but never will sing.
And how can you soar, with only one wing?
Your ash-coloured feathers, now mangled and grey.
Whose caricature are you meant to portray?
Your corpse, a chrysanthemum, danced to its death.
The heartbreaking lyre drowns out your last breath.
The notes on the stave soon follow you down,
To the land of lost souls, an eerie ghost town.
The king of the castle, the fool on the hill.
Shows you the staircase, stable and still.
The rules have been spoken, the silence is thick,
Step after step, quiet and quick.
The flap of your wings, a sorrowful climb.
And when he looks back, you've run out of time.
He'll whisper your name, to this curse he is bound.
A world of regret as you sink to the ground.