Olympus Circa 2016

Climbing a mountain
was never my ‘thing’
for rareness of air,
the view or to sing
(‘The hills are a-live, with the sound of…..’)

‘cept Olympus, her muses,
the daughters of arts
devising of treasures
close to my heart.

This pinnacle Balkan
holds sway in my dreams
where the deity dozen
storm on their themes.

Dressed up in nature,
I perceive of their home
lavished with starlight
‘neath a heavenly dome.

Swathed in cloud comfort
blushed Titian-esque rose,
in the realm of all beauty
echoes turbulent prose.

Zeus hurls his lightning
Dionysus calls ‘wine’!
Athena, all wisdom,
leaves her grapes on the vine.

Hermes goes racing
with wings at his heels,
twixt mortals and gods,
doing boundary deals.

All women; praise Hera
she’s on your side!
When birthing, Artemis
comes along for the ride.

Demeter’s fertile,
and harvests all life,
in fleeting existence
she holds the knife.

 
Under limitless fathoms
Poseidon awakes,
and heralds his presence
in signature quakes.

The patron of Delphi,
Apollo, in truth,
may bring healing or plague
kouros; our youth.

Aphrodite, her beauty
drove two Gods in desire;
Ares in violence,
Hephaestus in fire.

Did celestial workings
pause in their stride
when the glaciers came creeping
for the mountain to hide?

One million years sanctioned
‘til the temperature climbed
and the ice left its mark
in alluvial signs.

Now Olympus is silent,
unearthly, bereft -
it’s two-thousand-sixteen
there are no Gods left.