Nectar and Ambrosia

Nectar and ambrosia—

That’s what we had at hot high noon;

Myself from school had cantered all the way

To rush into my grandfolks’ house in June

And sit a prince among the older wise—

Grandpa disguised so no one knew behind his face

Fair Aristotle hid

And bade me show my wisdom’s tooth—

Good truth or bad,

I had and told it all,

While on my plate

Put by in simmerings of hell,

A sandwich packed with red imps,

Beasts that dwell

In Underwood’s small cans

Raise up a devilish smell,

So, with a grin,

I lift, I bite, I swallow mouths of sin.

That deviled ham put by in summers long ago

Is what I am.

I took such ancient knowledge

Glad for fates

That lodged and devil-danced on luncheon plates.

While all about,

The sages kept a silence that was awe,

For Aristotle spoke from my grandpa’s full mouth;

He told us paths across the town

In calms and wraths…

While Grandmama in kitchen fed the mythic storms

That in the roaring stove

Kept old gods’ fires warm,

And brought to us and all and laid on table

Abundances of mystic bread,

Or all the magic biscuits she was able to afford;

The dear Lord’s breath and golden flesh in each.

Beseeched by dialoguing boarders,

She skated back to bake yet more

And set them out in incenses and steams

That in the drifting afternoon

Cooked Grecian dreams

Of Hector and some nectar of the gods.

In each high tower room enclosure,

Spirit spouts of slow sweet sleeping breath,

Founts of ambrosia.

So we paced out a Mediterranean summer when

The gods in plain disguise returned again

And sat about this boy and touched his head

Assuring him that he would never, never, no,

Be lost or dead.

You’re bright! You’re clever, lad, get on!

Run forth, now! Live forever!

And, grown old the night before I died

With all my novels writ and high on shelf,

I loving looked at them and gladly cried

And shouted at the shadows of my Grandpa

And his Grecian friends:

“I tried; Oh, Lord, I tried!”