Silvia Scheibli (5 poems)
Conversations with Athena
Macedonia
Although
Athena abhorred shopping
Especially now
As the plague
Raged in this spectral city
With centuries-old limestone benches
Painted facades &
Hellenistic warriors mounted on
Marble colonnades
She hoped to discover
The latest palace intrigues
Of strategic marriages & diplomacy
So characteristic of this
Hyper-masculine society
Also she needed to find
A lion skin headdress
To bribe her brother
Who believed that war brought glory
So that she could pursue
Her secret pan-ethic studies
At her sanctuary
In Vergina
Mieza Sanctuary of Nymphs
Athena felt safe at Mieza
Evading her father’s security detail
Eluding one or two still glowing funeral pyres
After the latest blood-sport intrigue at the palace
She was elated to arrive
At the caves and hidden springs
Of Mieza
Here Athena sought out
Sappho, who with her own circle
Of poets and artists
Knew more ethics and philosophy
Than anyone she had ever met -
Being in her presence was itself
A symposium
Sappho
Much beloved
Admired and slandered
Sappho had promised to meet her
In the peristyle whose mosaic floor
Was created entirely of beach pebbles
In a botanical motif
With jade, emerald and cerulean hues
Accenting the deeper greens
Of the Mieza’s lush, wind-combed grasses
Her star-warmed eyes
Met Athena’s at breaking point
Beyond which nothing felt real
Except the inlaid fire of
Imagination &
Insight
Oracle at Delphi
Quivering
Sappho and Athena
Travelled to Athens
Crossing pomegranate-studded terrain
To Delphi
Where the oracle’s hand-raised goats
Roamed olive groves
Intending to learn their fortunes
They assisted with
Washing bones in wine
Wrapping them in a purple cloth &
Placing them in a golden larnax
Inside a marble sarcophagus
Before sealing the tomb
While the god Hermes
Conducted the warrior’s soul
To the underworld
Hermes
Deciding to join the party
Hermes stirred Sappho’s pulse
Undressing her mind
With quips, quotes & gossip
Leaving Athena to socially
Distance and daydream about
Twirling those ebony loose curls
At Sappho’s serene temple
The toasted their friendship
With Campari
Enjoying bowls of saffron rice
With squid, mussels and clams
For dessert
Sappho read poems about her
Newest lover
Who slept all day &
Would only pee in silver vessels
Handed to her by a young page
Wearing scarlet slippers
Embossed with golden
Phainopeplas
Silvia Scheibli lives on her finca, near the borderlands in south-east Arizona - a hot-spot for photographers and birders alike. And as long as there is no border wall, wildlife will be able to move freely along his unique Sky Islands Corridor, home of jaguars, bobcats, coatimundi, white-tailed deer and javelin. This exceptional landscape is very valuable for forming fresh Immanentist perceptions or way of seeing, that which Heidegger called 'Dasein.'