The little satyr outside the cathedral’s herb cottage patiently pipes his silent tune regardless of the season. He’s not a gargoyle, but why hold that against him? When he heard we’re getting more snow on top of the two feet that fell on the city last weekend, he took it personally.
SAUDADE
I pipe under protest, knowing no blizzard will trouble to tell me
Why I was banished, a fantasy long since forgotten.
Older eyes see an Arcadian prelude, when straw-skirted shepherd girls
Swooned at my lyrics, eternally light-eyed and lewd…
One day, the sun shone down drowsy. I curled upon emeraldine moss-root,
Dozing insensate, for nothing that dreams is immortal.
Stretching, I stirred—and I gasped at the winter that rose all around me:
Blinding white pastures and hillsides and frost-shrouded peaks.
Heartsick, I shook—and then Zephyrus whispered, so hyacinth-sweet,
Dissolving the winter; the world was a fresh, flawless green.
Snow turned to cloudbursts, all wet-nosed and panting. They pressed for a melody,
Cheerful but soothing, as pale and as patient as peonies.
Storm-god, I’m hardly as young as I look. Your rage to benumb me
Kindles a memory: waking to sheep in the spring.
(For all the entries in this series, hit the “looking up” tag.)
Quid Plura? 
Excellent!
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You aren’t by chance Portuguese, are you? It isn’t common to find someone not Portuguese who knows what “saudades” means.
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It’s a neat word, isn’t it? I learned it from a somewhat unscholarly source: It was the title of an instrumental track on the 1985 Love and Rockets album “Seventh Dream of a Teenage Heaven.”
Where the satyr learned it, I couldn’t say.
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Perhaps the satyr counts some homesick Portuguese lady among his many exploits? 😉
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