by Steve King
© 2010
All rights reserved
What matter'd it now? She who made the sea move,
made it crawl with their ships; now she might
well have been
just a fine polished marble, cold as that
stone,
lugged off for booty, and stowed in the
hold
of the man's mad desire.
Behind, the smoke rose so high o’er the
plain;
and the cries of the dead rose too in the
plumes,
and echoed the halls of the indifferent
gods,
who heard all the groans as the gods
always did:
so sated with god-love and smoke from
their altars,
now giddy with griefs, and conjuring
scores
to settle anon.
And the smoke and cries rose through the
dark-browed clouds
long after the sails had dipped out of
sight,
slipped over the edge of the
smooth-seeming sea,
away from the cries and away from the
smoke,
so heavy with swag, their blood-stained
treasure;
and women they took, now sea-staring,
weeping,
all huddled astern in the hard rocking
ships.
It was all too quiet after the war years,
the blood men a-pace on the confining
decks.
They were near out of heroes, near out of
their time,
out of sight of the smoke, out of sight
of the land
and the army of graves laying siege to
charred walls.
Away from the dark-browed clouds did they
sail,
clouds carrying smoke and the cries of
the dead;
beetles leaving the plague, scuttling
back to their earth,
back to where it began: the azure-lapped land,
a twitch in the loin of the rugged
spear-man.
