Apollonai, In Your Honor
by Todd Jackson

I.
The moment that you die shall be Selected
As, among brown boughs, nearly denuded,
Demeter awaits the white peaches.

II.
An intelligence twitches in the wolflight.
Listen for its quiet stepping as, ahead, they cross the path,
And when they circle on both sides, gliding through the dark brush,
The quickness of bright eyes.
They have come to teach.
That it is bad to have become infirm.
That one had best keep pace.

III.
Athens recalls Lycia
In the crane of His head, so, and
In that He, too, is a God whose smooth brow furrows.
For there are old things that are of Apollo.
Thou art the herdsman, and thou art wolf.
Thou art the taut predation of the wolves, tuned to human favor.
“Hie Paian!,” the people’s joy at this fresh advantage.
See! He has gripped hold the horizon with both strong hands,
And dragged it back a great distance,
To where only those whose sight is sharpest might see
Birds, like fine specks, wheeling high above the carcass of the Dragon.
See! He has lifted Himself to a perch below the blue sky’s midpoint,
Close above the plain. The birds are now scattered, and,
Shining hard upon the new land,
He has left the soil crisp for our footprints.

Copyright © 2007, Todd Jackson