From Hermes to Apollo

Though Eros first prompts the bond, it does not end with him.

Clear-traced as echo, it winds, step by devious misstep,

the immaterial mountain of the greater god

who weaves upon the high omphalos of our world,

central, too bright to see,

and about his bent head fluttering, like butterflies and birds,

souls: invisible in our dim light.

Against the great god’s gossamer web

that guides our every stumbling tread

closer, closer to his star-cold summit,

we flex in vain our threatened, paraded will;

wrestle ambiguously;

from this doom would not be saved,

however the assaulted “I” shield itself behind pretenses

of inhuman pain or futile rage

to bear saying unbearable of light.

Nor do we kick too hardily, lest those slenderest lines

break away, recoil from grasp, and leave us lost

upon the chosen mountain, succorless.

Such earned intensity of grief and glory the young god—

Hermes Psychopomp wearing his jackal head—

could not, dared no trace, who,

at the first foothill,

bade us hasty farewell.