Oracle

Dawn at Delphi. Goat bells clustering in
the air like fruit and the whir of doves in flight
as loud as bees’ buzz in the dried-out shrubs.
So much sensation, sans revelation.

Two days later in Naupoli arak
drew me through antic night then into day.
Penitent, I threaded the sun’s eye at noon,
staggering dazzled up eight hundred worn

steps through the shrill of cidada, squinting
at light warped into waves broken over
bleached stone slabs. Nausea unparalleled!

Yet I clutched at the notion I might someday strew
my tidings, which would flourish like clumps
of weeds whose seeds have fallen into cracks.