Athena
Ode to an Angel of Radical Compassion
Even in the passing flash of images
sliding, liquid, down the digital walls of our perceptions
I can see your eyes
They are hauntingly familiar, hawk like
holding the same fierce truth as Cleopatra’s
When she braved the swords of a thousand men
And it pierces me, the same way I was pierced
When I first pondered the strange mix of sweetness and steel
In the gaze of Rosa Parks
her smile welcoming me home
and yet reminding me of my sadness
at the cruelty and blindness of my own kind
And in your stance I see Athena
The Mediterranean sun glinting off your helmet
And the delicate curve of your arm in delicious contrast
to your razor tipped spear
You, lady of Athens, with the wisdom of the owl
Bringing salt olives and bread when the sun sets over Sparta
And the wind is calm
And having been in the shadow of Rome’s walls
Alone, and felt the bite of a first stone thrown
I will never forget the copper taste of blood and bone
And were it not for your sudden shadow
and the parchments you bore
The iron gears of Byzantine would have rolled on
leaving me just another stain on the cobbled path of misfortune
And I know, when the colder winds of autumn blow
There is a similar ache in our souls
etched from the wounds of a thousand battles
carved indelibly on our skin, like stories on an ivory tusk
or the henna on a young girls foot
For I too have set foot on fields still smoldering
rough with the mark of men’s last cries
and know the bitter wake of battle, when the silence carries more
then could ever be said
And I too long for an olive branch
that will not wash away in these floods
And a kinder moon to climb across the sky
