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!

Singing Ludwig

by Brett Rutherford

Three friends and I
crossed a long field,
skirting the wetlands behind
our dismal college.

On a dare, we each in turn
sang out the opening bars,
and major themes
of every movement
of all nine symphonies.
Beethoven, deaf,
cared not what key
we sang it in, but would
have smiled when we reached,
at last, the Ninth’s Finale.

We did it, we who sipped wine
on Ludwig’s December birthday.

Not one of us
     was a music major.
We knew these symphonies
the way we knew to breathe.

These nine stupendous works
cap off a vast and free
inheritance that belongs to all.

Today, I mention the Master
and those works’ long shadows
over everything that followed,
and most of those around me
squirmed and changed the subject.

Poor fools, do you think
there’s time enough in Heaven
to attend to serious music?

Who leaves a check
for a million dollars,
a life of ecstasies and joy,
unclaimed, uncashed?

 

Killing the Lion at Nemea

Hercules and the Nemean Lion, Francesco de Zuburan (1634)

by Brett Rutherford

     After Archias, The Greek Anthology, xvi, 94

It was not much of a place,
     where wasted ploughmen tilled
          an always-reluctant earth.

He was not much of a lion,
     either. He had no wife, no pride.
          Last of his kind, he was starving.

Some days he barely raised himself
     on spindly legs, to seize a lamb
          fresh born from a protesting ewe;

some days he menaced the farmers’
     sons, but not in memory
          had he tasted the sweet man-flesh

that is the Lion’s high delight;
     and as for bulls (he counted four),
          they tossed him up and over them

and snorted in contempt. Now who
     should come to annoy his rest
          but that club-wielder, Heracles!

Cudgel discarded, the hero stalked
     in circles around the somnolent
          lion, kneading his iron-strong fingers

palm to palm. “With my own hands, dread
     killer of the Nemean plain,
          I plan to strangle you. Rise up

"and offer fang and claw, that I
     may interrupt your best attempt
          at fatal leap with one fore-arm,

“for I am Heracles, killer
     of monsters. Up, I command you!”
          The lion only flicked his long tail.

“That is my brother’s coat you wear,”
     the Lion responded. “Does the skin
          of a lion make you a lion?”

The foe with shoulder broad as ox
     tossed off the pelt to face him nude.
          “Lion! I am a son of Zeus!

“No more the lamb need fear the day,
     no more shall Echo hear thy roar
          and mimic it to chill the blood.” —

“Oh, no more speeches, Heracles!
     All know that Hera despises
          her husband’s half-human offspring.” —

“Fight me, thou sluggard cat!” shouted
     the outraged demigod. Instead,
          the Lion sighed — rolled over — died.

The Shipwreck's Grave

by Brett Rutherford

     Adapted from Archias, The Greek Anthology, vii, 278

Why here, within the sea’s
ear-shot, have you buried me
in this godforsaken place
where the tide crashes
on the rocks below, and winds
echo the wrath of Poseidon
endlessly? Low surges
that never sleep, the groan
of tides coming in
and going out,
the hiss of salt spray:
it's all enough to drive one mad
for even though I am dead
in distant Hades, I hear it all.


If foot-treads come
and someone offers flowers
I would never know it,
for the ocean’s roar
drowns everything.

Don’t waste a prayer here:
Words are blown back
into your throat,
your utterance a moving mouth
without a thought behind it
for all I know.

My name was Theris,
and all you know of me, it seems,
is that the waves delivered me,
an eyeless corpse, fish-ridden,
after my father sent me
with dowry and serving maids
for an arranged marriage.

Now on this brine-salt hill
whose soil sprouts no flowers,
right next to the sea that killed me,
some stranger saw fit
to dig this grave,
and with a paper’s shroud
deposit my remains
into this noisy cacophony.

Oh, be assured, I joined
the lonely dead in Hades,
but here I walk about,
alone, unspoken-to,
two howling sea-shells glued
to my agonized ears.

Until the ocean dries
and the sea becomes
an object of literature and legend,
I shall have no repose.

The Beached Dolphin

by Brett Rutherford

     After Archias, The Greek Anthology, vii, 214

Mammal among the fishes,
darting and flying atop
the salt-rich sea, dancer
to the sailor’s reed pipe,
up for your own sounding air
alongside the welcoming
sailboats, hail, friend Dolphin!

You carried the fabled Nereids
upon your high-arched back,
ferrying blithe spirits to Tethys.
You nestled lost boys to harbor,
shoving aside the hungry sharks.
Ever have you shown yourself our friend.

But now to see you here,
on land, I tremble. One wave
you never saw coming, leapt up
behind you and dashed you here
on the headland beach of Malea,
where no returning tide comes, ever.

With our own hands
we would have carried you
back to the churning waters,
if only we knew!

Who heard the song you gasped
beneath the unrelenting sun?
Does no god or spirit
look after you?
Who comforted your death?

Behind me, someone calls out,
“It is only some random dolphin,
and not the one you knew.”

I heed this not.
In the death of one
     we partake in the death of all.
In the friendship of one
     we partake of all friends, ever.
All tears and groans
     are universal.

Death of the Cicada

by Brett Rutherford

     After Archias, The Greek Anthology, vii, 213

The molting cicada,
immobilized,
is overcome by ants.
Soon legions arrive,
and, lifting it up,
bear off the pine’s
shrill singer, beloved
by shepherds. Mouths
feast, and fierce clamps rend
carapace to penetrate
the tender core.

No more the song
shall issue forth
from the cool, dark branches.
Sweeter than lyre-song
to those in the fields
was his compound melody.

O Hades, relent!
Undo this undignified
abduction!
That so mighty a singer
could be laid low
by these riddling pests
is cruel. Mandibles
are not musical,
and to be prey —
life’s juices sucked
by idiot drones —
unthinkable!

Has any ant, ever,
had one original thought?
Should not some Muse instead,
reach down and take
the joyous maker of song
into her protection?

A second horde arrives.
They will take hours
to finish off the cicada.
Inedible themselves,
the ants fear nothing.
Have you not seen enough?
Oh, look away!

From the Magpie

 

by Brett Rutherford

     Adapted from Archias, The Greek Anthology, vii, 191

Shepherd, attend!
Woodcutter, put down
your axe and listen!
Fisherman, pay mind
to the sirenless rocks.
Now, when you call,
who answers? No one.

Your unseen friend,
the reliable magpie,
I no longer keep
     you company.
I’m on the road,
legs up, eyes white,
beak issuing
     not even a breath.

Do you not miss
my familiar screech,
the comfort I gave
to your solitary work?
No crumb I sought
for all the cheer I gave.

Will one of you at least
     come find me?
A decent burial is not
     too much to ask!

 

Fly Away! Fly Away!

 by Brett Rutherford

     Adapted from Archias, The Greek Anthology, v, 59 

You, above it all, tell me
“One should fly from Love.”
You, neither philosopher
     nor naturalist, seem not
to know I have no wings.

Birds flutter up
at the slightest alarm;
even from hawks
the small prey
dart away. 

So what am I to do?
Two legs I have,
     and short ones at that.
It is easy for you
with lamp and stylus
to advise the love-lorn.
Have you even seen daylight
since all that scribbling started?
That crowd around your gate,
offering coins for counsel,
do they think you an oracle?

I am doomed, I tell you.
By day I slink along
     house walls in shadow.
By night I avoid
     big, open spaces,

but I know he is up there,
     that sly one,
wings wider than eagle-span,
eyes keen, my name
already inscribed
on his dread arrow.

How fly, as helpless
as a barnyard chicken,
when Eros flaps about?

Oh, what’s the use? By dawn
I’ll be in love with someone!

The Madness of Ajax

Death of Ajax, Henri Serrur, 1820

 

by Brett Rutherford

     Adapted from Archias, The Greek Anthology, vii, 147.

Only you, Ajax,
when all Greeks fled
to the beach in total rout,
stood firm; that shield
as broad as an oak tree
blocked their way.

The stones they hurled,
the arrows raining down,
were as nothing to you.
Even when swords and spears
came at you, you held
the Trojans back. One shout
from your great lungs sufficed
to send them scurrying
to regroup and come again.
Just as some crag above the main
holds back a hurricane,
you the enemy daunted.

Re-armed and driven wild
with courage from seeing you,
we were not vanquished
that day.

                  Troy fell,
and all you asked
was one great boon:
the armor of Achilles.

This Pallas Athena
refused to grant you.
It wasn’t as though
you could wear it:
a stripling one quarter
your girth he was.

Prizeless, you raged,
and rage became madness.
All who came near
to reason with you,
you slaughtered as though
we had become enemies.
Your tent was your madhouse.

Cruel were the Fates
who willed this, leading astray
the good intent of Athena.
As we learned to our woe
you were indestructible,
a killing machine
who could clear the whole world
of its inhabitants if rage,
that rage, kept growing on.

Ares had opened War
and could not put the lid back on,
and so, at last,
the hand that killed you
was the only one that could:
your own.

 

 

Atys and the Lion

Sculpture of Atys, Ephesus Archaeological Museum.

 by Brett Rutherford

    Adapted from Dioscorides, The Greek Anthology, vi, 220

Running as only an acolyte can run,
the step and spring that scarcely touches
earth before one foot follows
the other, a single-purpose run
not in Olympic chase, and free

from erotic distractions, gelded
Atys, the self-castrated worshipper
of unrelenting Cybele, flew
up and beyond the treeline, wild
hair tossed every way by winds,
a Boreal restraint as legs leaped
free of the ground. Sardis he sought
in Persian Lydia, a long run,
from Anatolian Pessinus
on the Turkish high plateau.

No matter food, or thirst, or fall,
one frenzy would carry him onward.
But then, in a vale, as the dark
of night came, his hot blood cooled
somewhat, and, spying a shelter spot
beneath an overhanging rock
he climbed there, forsaking the known road.

But lo! There came a Lion, lord
of the forested waste, broad as oak
and huge of maw. Men swallowed
whole were his meat and morsel.
Atys stood still, his eyes to the eyes
of the ravening beast. Then he pulled ’round
the ox-skinned tambour he carried
(one of two gifts for the Sardian temple)
and struck it hard. And again, and again,
he beat with both hands the smitten skin.

Then off as fleet as a frightened deer
the full-maned lion bounded — gone,
and nevermore to trouble the traveler.
And Atys cried out, “Great Mother,
when I reach the banks of the Sangarias,
I shall dedicate to you this dread tambour,
whose roaring saved my life, and this
one other gift, the leather thalame
in which I offer up to you that which
my own blade removed in your honor.”

And on the wild man fled. Others,
like him, followed, thrall
to the all-demanding goddess,
those holy, mutilated madmen
in quest of the dark fire
at the heart of creation.

Less Said, Best Said

by Brett Rutherford

     Adapted from Archias, The Greek Anthology, vii, 140

Tell, O column, whose son he was.

     He was the son of Priam.

Tell us his name and country.

     Hector, the pride and prince of Ilium

Now tell us how he came to die.

     Say of him only
     that he defended his country.

 

Diogenes the Cynic, Dead

by Brett Rutherford

     After Archias, The Greek Anthology, vii, 68

Weeping is your delight, O boatman of Hades
Tears from above are like wine to you
as you convey the dead
upon Acheron’s undrinkable waters.
If but one tear descends
with my name upon it, give heed
and add me to the manifest
for this night’s passage. With all
the dead weight of war and famine
you bear, my little bulk is as nothing.

I’ll not be left behind.
Call me “Diogenes the Dog”
if you wish to diminish me
even further. I do not mind.
Baggage have I none:
my staff, my smelly cloak,
this seldom-used wallet,
in which one obol,
down here as heavy
as a lump of lead,
that one thin coin
you are obliged to take
as my ticket. What’s here

is all I had above,
unless you count memory
of sky and sea, harvest
and the occasional
kindness of strangers.

True, most who knew me
wished me here. A shrug
greeted the news of my passing.
The best of my sayings
already twist this way
and that on the tongues
of rascals and old wives.

Here, the coin.
Let’s get on with it.
I left nothing in daylight,
anyway. Take it, boatman!

Three Spinning Sisters

by Brett Rutherford

     After Archias, The Greek Anthology, vi, 39

From the dark we come;
to the dark we go.
We were three of Samos
Euphro, Satyra, and Heracleia,
daughters of Xuthus and Melite.

To gray-eyed Athena
we have bequested these
unworthy offerings,
the implements with which
we staved off poverty:

The spindle, weary
of its long service making
fine, spidery thread,
and its long distaff;
the musical comb
that pulled the close-weave cloth
together, and this worn-out
basket from which the wool,
wadded and piled up high,
passed from one sister’s hand
to another’s.

Our eyes have failed,
our fingers stiffen,
and so we gather up
this last offering,

with which a poet,
taking pity, added
these suppliant lines.
Some of our work
is already in Hades:
shrouds we have made
for rich and poor.

From the dark we come,
to the dark we go.
Down there,
if asked,
we will mend and sew.