“Suppliants of the Hearth”
~AESCHYLUS



With suppliant olive branch, to what kinder land could Man return?
Whose cities and earth of brightened water
Olympian lords, ye ancient gods below
Whose end possessed the tomb, though Savior Zeus
Keeps pious souls and yet receives
(respectful in the airy lands of men)
Those suppliants of the Hearth, rehearsed!

Though for the smarmy scorn of ****** men
Before the draught tastes the dregs of waste
Return their ships upon the brothing seas
And wintry stings of hurricanes the braved
Pressed on by lightnings, thunders, cast upon
More wild of winds, by facing life to death
Undo what wrong the law forbids
Cousins of pain who lie in strain upon unwilling beds!

Who shows the faithful witness
Still unknown by natives here
As unexpected to the false
Unknown upon who know and last at length!
Meloncoly more of song than Ionian strings
My heart unused to tears on Nile’s cheek
We gather bloom of sorrow
Anxious friends
Someone in search of strength
As exiles, far away on an empty mist!

Hear then, ancestral gods
And kindly look upon the tears of justice lost
With hating people, nothing left to lawlessness undecreed-
Our union justly met!

Behold the Heavens
Invincible in bulwark
Touring always the lasting weary
Among men, respect of gods!

Now will be done
Traced easy in the Earth
Uncompromised of fortune
And blackness through the hearts of men!

Thou asks how far the wind blows
in fact I cannot tell
Or then how high the heavens
my prayers deep in the well

Thou asks if love comes truly
to one in greatest need
My answer spoken duly
of romance undecreed

Thou asks if truth be spoken
or written timeless down
My speech in patterns broken
unlettered and unfound

Thou asks if time be measured
beyond the last refrain
This moment hides the answer
—of that I can proclaim

(Dreamsleep: September, 2022)