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Tholos, base of Mt. Parnassus, Delphi
Out of the fading morning fog, in
A powdery blue day
The soft forms moving in the dream
Deep, there, out of the rocks, by the spring
Where the oracle waits with pressed lips
Under the boughs of the oak
Out of the fading morning fog, in a powdery blue day
Under the bays of the oak and the laurel
One can almost imagine the soft forms moving
Through the obscurity of the dream
To a hype that insinuates like music from a zither
Deep there, out of the rocks, by the spring
Where the oracle waits with lips pressed
Almost as tight as the drawer of the cashbox
The swishing of the garments of the departing
Muses, through the receding fog
Temple of Apollo, Delphi
2 comments:
"the swishing garments of the departing Muses, through the receding fog"
the vapors of the place induced intoxication and "ecstatic prophesy"
higher up the mountain in the canyon walls the light changed and inspired
sometimes science, sometimes art and poetry
Apollo's and Athena temples separate but together, a short walk
It will always be so except when the Oracle is bribed
then in poetry, for example you get something like the language poets
Elmo,
Difficult indeed to endure without lament is the current desacralization of poetry in the hands of the academically institutionalized and otherwise multiply self privileged current license holders.
But we must remember that for Apollo to build his temple over that of the Python he had slain was just another case of generational conflict and supercession, the saddest and oldest dialectic which we can now come to understand only with difficulty because of its masking as class struggle.
So now it is an academic business opportunity and conferencing site.
When Apollo killed the Python the Castalian Spring flowed toward the temple but went underground and vanished, leaving the cleft from which arose the vapors that made the oracle so high she could not but utter her prophecies, the lucky girl.
But could she not feel the coin in her palm even when carried away?
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