By David Allard –
For seven years, he sat, squinting,
by the whispering waves of the sea-lagoon,
fingers playing with small hills and valleys
of a million purple-tinged shells,
stuttering at the fishermen’s questions
waiting for a voice – a sign.
Weary of the wet sand,
the sickly fruit of the tall trees,
he strode inland Into the heat,
as if he had a purpose,
held high a shard of Phoenician glass
as a charm against the sun god’s blazing chariot.
An acacia bush crackled as it caught the light,
miraculously twisted itself into spiny fire.
A dove shrilled as it flapped away
in search of an outcrop or an olive tree
and a voice cried out:
“You have no branch or brand
to capture heat. Come back
when you have learned
to plan better. “
“P-p-prometheus seeks you, not I”,
The man replied.
“Ah.Ah..
The One you seek has no name you can say,
is no man-eater, no hairy teller of trashy riddles,
But a Fierce Spirit high in the barren mountains,
his imperial face more terrible than Medusa’s.”
He turned away, remembering
a bed of trampled bulrushes
by stinking trapped water,
wondering where the spirit could be
and how beautiful, how grand and never-ending
the distant land promised to some, and
held by others, must surely be.
The voice, now sad, called as it faded:
“ He bullies and pities in equal measure” –
but the man did not hear the warning.
