Go. Go before I change my mind,
Is all He would have thought, and said,
If not for the great glee He heard
In how Marsyas gripped and played
The thin, twig-tied pipes for the Lord
Of Light, Prince of Gods, Apollo,
The Core Verse incarnate, Father
And Avenger of Troilus.
Bonheur blared from the spit-soaked wood
As his left hind leg and hoof stomped
Out one impossible measure
After another as, unsure
Of what we were hearing, we hid
And half-watched, half-blinded by His
Half-presence, from a safe distance.
How happy do you have to be
Before the gods come to stoke and
Then smother it? Poor Marsyas.
Thirty-seven summers ago, when
This bower itself was still young
And on trial, He descended—
Sunluxed, blessed, and blessing with Dawn.
He cooed into the kid’s flared ear.
That was all it took, and was. Air.
Air from the Harbinger of Song.
A gift: until he offended
Great Apollo, boasting, “I can play
Almost as well as Great Apollo.”
But he couldn’t. And he didn’t.
And Great Apollo took his prize.
He toyed Marsyas to tinsel,
Then hung his stripped skin from a tree,
And said, I am Apollo: the Power
And Glory and First Song. Burn this bower.
Burn it down—. Then, scribe, write well of me.