DELPHI

Dreamed on desolate ruins 

now in nights dark skies,

the sun long dead, 

the moon now lights this pile of rubble,

once a palace, 

once so proud and strong, 

a throng of rich clad dignitaries walked its stone arcades, 

stood with speeches raised above the town

now gone, 

their words hang still on whispered fluted pillars

in the dew of rains and storms, 

their presences made glorious in myths and too in song,

the birds are they who carry on the ballads

of gods and maidens fair,

of agile bronzed athletes now forgotten, 

of gallantry beyond compare so dangerous,

so tragic,

where symbols of the past are relics now, 

admired,

their potency expired,

locked doors defy the modern man to enter here

those stones anethema

no more revered the Oracle 

once greatest in its power

its hour of fame reduced to a mere art

The winds of Athens blow through hollow holes

beside the spring

the source of everything,

here among the few columns creamed by night,

the silence stuns,

the crickets cease their plight,

the asphodel and thistle flower an eerie white,

they were not here when treasure filled the coffers,

now none remains,

nor wisdom from those times,

the only chimes of sound are mice and bats,

there sits the owl his face so black,

his eyes like jewelled marbles face the shade,

and we stand silent sent to other facets of our mind,

where history has left its trace behind,

and contemplate.