These are the words of the ancient poet,
Young in days, distant in time,

Learning her craft as she learned herself
Before she lept from her family's warm arms
And found her voice in the stars above.

 

Poems from before, during, and after transition.

 

Sappho and I have natural voices that sing in harmony.

 

Sometimes I feel her voice when writing and I let her flow through me.

 

The simplest explanation is that random chance has produced a similar set of atoms and synapses with similar poetic tendencies.

 

Or, just maybe, the destruction of her poems in the bonfires of her enemies left Sappho smoldering over these long centuries.

 

Perhaps the whispers in my head are her lost poems sifted from the ashes - those she would write if only she were alive and not me.

 

I originally published these poems on StarPoet in 1968 with the intention of going through the entire Tao, comparing four different translations to each another, absorbing the essence of each, and then writing.  It soon became obvious that this project could quickly grow to consume most of my life and I stopped at five.