Before the Oracle Flees Sounion: a Note

 

Prepare this warning

when its body finally rises

above the foam of low tide. Beached,

its slick surface will ripple like sails confident

in the crosswinds. Once or twice we’ve named them,

but have forgotten how

their mammoth eyes roll toward the moon.

 

Come willingly and walk the length of its dome: a vast curve

familiar

as our temple roof touched by stars.

Place palms on its skin and receive its first taste—ocean

salt and the rotted lace of its mother’s dead arms.

Recall pearlescent eggs,

thousands gently looped

like ribbons through an only child’s curls.

See that, by the thousands,

they mourn this one—

its eyes clouded, its beak sun dried. See that,

by the thousands,

they dive. See that,

by the thousands,

they come.