Athens

Over the restless stones of the Parthenon
the hurrying footsteps of Athena
pursued by Poseidon down
the narrow ***** streets
past our still-arguing parents
past our still harrowing childhoods
we remember going away from here
quickly carried on the salt breeze
the swelling falling away of seasons
wanting what was never enough
forgetting what was never enough
green we said just give us that
and maybe the blue would be enough
but when they took our mother away
we cowered and when our father
was drowned we stood silent
the green watched and what we
thought was the blue became
a whole millenium a conflagration
finally the boat turned into the harbor
and we went up among the dark trees
we have come back to listen
to what the stones are listening to
we are listening to that


2. Sounion

So we sailed past Sounion
our sails holding and letting go
of the little gusts of light fading
and washing over us
we could feel our weary thoughts
slipping from us now our hearts
holding the darkness close like a mirror
an emptiness we wanted to love
and then Mycenae’s hill’s scant shade of
one tree the hot breath of Perseus
the stillness of shining stones
from wherever the enemy comes
he must scale this height
taste the blood of Agamemnon
on the thyme-rinsed breeze
to what god do we sing now if not
the hidden one known to these hills
in these bodies how many
broken columns will have to be
raised again and in that place
where only thresholds remain
dividing the green grass inside
from the green grass outside
how much labor to become no one
to step right past ourselves and speak
at last out of the merciful
into the pure silence


3. Patmos

The petals of the flowers on her dress
as she stands in the bow of the ferry
rounding the last trace of Samos
make me remember Pythagoras
said music heals their turning
and rippling in the wind now
more intense then quieting
and I can either watch those
petals or these waves and feel
what the night has made of me
a mood like that one house there
on the hillside of the far shore
only an eternity of lapis between us
or I can hold the mountains up ahead
the boat’s slippery progress toward them
the sea sloshing as we cut through it
feel how these islands were formed
from all these pictures all these sounds
so it hardly matters right now
if we ever get to Patmos
if we ever climb the steep hill to the cave
where the terrible words were spoken
or see the view John saw or dream
of spending a winter in that
abandoned windmill there
because right here and now
watching the petals on her dress
it hardly matters much at all