by Brett Rutherford
Adapted from Meleager, The Greek Anthology, xii, 57
Praxiteles of old
made delicate art
in bronze and marble,
fooled men to believe
a lifeless copy
moved and breathed
in the confines
of a captured moment.
Today’s Praxiteles, an
almost-beardless youth,
has other powers. His hands
reach into my heart
and carve a figure there:
dread Eros, the rogue-brat!
This young one even
makes things inside my head,
already so clogged
with mazes and Minotaurs:
the latest, a many-chambered
temple where he alone
merits my worship.
As faint as fly-buzz
I hear the tiny hammers,
the dragging of stones,
as my interior temple
grows apace. Shall I
be better for this
acropolis complex
within my cerebellum?
Within my mind’s eye’s
eye, I spy an interior peristyle.
Am I permitted to kneel inside,
an ageless, robed
hierophant, hands
extended to one
who touches me back?
For be not fooled.
Its arms go up and down.
It even speaks.
(Beneath the god,
machineries below
give life to stone
and breath to lips.)
So dreaming, I worship
Praxiteles, and Eros obey.
Waking, I pass him by,
all eyes, and he pretends
he does not know me.
Oh, do not build and abandon
sky-palaces! Steal not the soul
in which proud columns rise.
Embrace, Praxiteles,
this tortured dreamer!
Eros, my heart,
Praxiteles, my mind,
Priapus, down below.
I am a trinity. Pray
that my arms and legs
drawn hither and thither
do not fly off!
