APOLLO AND RAVEN SOUL

IN THY SOUL, RAVEN

“Such then is the condition of us mortals: to these and to like vicissitude of fortune are we born; so much so, that we cannot be sure of anything, no, not even that a person is dead…the soul of Aristeas was seen to fly out of his mouth, under the form of a raven.” Pliny The Elder, Ch 53, “Persons Who Have Come To Live Again”, pp. 210-11

Traversing sacred space
near the beginning
near the end
sepulcher empty

a battle and a throne―
in medial space soul wanders!
your raven spirit, Koronis
oracles unfaithful parentage.

In a nymph of healing forces
where water flows everlasting
life not drowned, still glows, for knowing love
and loving knowing give birth differently.

Given in birth differently, thy soul, raven
ash heap near the beginning, red and hairy
near the end, oh, spring up, spring up
sepulcher empty

©2014 Spring Up, Spring Up A Bastard Sun stephanie pope mythopoetry.com
#ohjDailyWords, #ohj, #mythopoetics

MANY-TURNED MAN

Odysseus Slays The Suitors, Attic red-figure skyphos
c. 440 BC, from Tarquinia, by the Penelope Painter

THE PHARMAKOS RITE

...Ulysses tore off his rags and sprang on to the broad pavement with his bow and his quiver full of arrows. He shed the arrows on to the ground at his feet and said, "The mighty contest is at an end. I will now see whether Apollo will vouchsafe it to me to hit another mark which no man has yet hit.        
            ~Odyssey, Book XXII, The Death of Suitors, Samuel Butler translation
oddly, Apollo
faithful Odysseus

©2014 Apollon stephanie pope mythopoetry.com
#ohj faithful, Apollo