Vestal virgin

I can never really express what a budding bough means to me, for no fault of yours or mine. It’s just that some imaginings do not yield themselves up to be re-formed, re-imagined, as neatly as others seemingly do. So it is of no surprise that I can’t describe what Corinna’s May-morning suggests to me, even after all these years of its having being written, ‘shorn’ of all conflicts that it supposedly projects, and just as a beautiful invocation to go out and yield oneself up to May. The not-so-muted undertones of eroticism, instead of detracting from the peace of an innocent endeavour, slicken the feeling till it runs heavy, ponderous and slow, like nectar. The slow-moving nectar trickles from the boughs above and down the necks of the May-worshippers, matting in their hair or running down their bodies. At places, it renders the spotless white of the vestal virgins transparent. Dewdrops dry on their foreheads, and the leaves, which are in plenty, surround them in an ecstasy. Tales of keys and locks, and locks being picked, abound in the blushes of the virgins, and prepares them for what is to follow.