I’ve let the blog rest while I worked on an article for the past week or so.  There’s more to say about William Blake, and, as always, about John Emerson Roberts, but for today, I’m sharing a poem I still like, many years after I wrote it.

Earlier this spring, in thinning out a box of past efforts, I pulled out a long series of poems I had written in response to excavation reports from a location in southern Greece which is believed to be the Palace of Nestor, the wise old man in Homer’s tale of the Trojan War.  I found plenty of poems that I would not submit to public scrutiny any more.  I found others that seemed like a good idea worth revisiting.  I found a few, of which this is one, which I’m keeping as an example of my “early period.”

Beneath the Throne

The excavators call it treasure:
an agate pendant, a bit of paste,
some beads and twisted wire
tucked away under the dais.
I think of the mix in cornerstones,
builders’ gifts to the future.

I think of a brass-toned chain,
my grandmother’s ring, the earring
I didn’t lose, in a cardboard box
at the back of my dresser drawer,
of caches not intended
to be opened any time soon.

Advertisement