In the Balkans

by Brett Rutherford

     After Archias, The Greek Anthology, ix, 111

In Thrace they mourn
when a baby’s head
peeps out from the womb
into the painful light
of day. In Thrace, the dead,
upon their burial,
are deemed most blessed of all.
(Death only serves the Fates,
a welcome dinner guest.)

Maybe they have it right:
in Life, all sorts of woe
and evil happenings
befall the innocent
and the evil-doer
with equal measure. One
medicine mends all, and
levels all in common: Death.

Having no borders
     and no common gods
they murder one another
     merrily, and without cause.
Insults take generations
     to avenge, and blood
     stains more than wine
     the kitchen floor.

So grim and quarrelsome a place,
such dour inhabitants:
small wonder no one visits Thrace!