Classic Clarity

CM

            Classic Clarity  cont

Modern poetry  modern verse  contemporary poetry  contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem

Who’d want to read the ancient poets, myth

And tales, because of facts?  Aegean blue

And empty temples, ancient grave sites with

A beaten gold mask may be facts and true,

But true enough?  Excited Schliemann sends

The king of Greece a message, “I have seen

The face of Agamemnon.”  Culture lends

Us larger truths.  Greek daylight in between

Ionic columns, whole or broken, tells

Us more than archeologists.  It means

A mindset caught in clarity.  The wells

Of Homer’s words are truer in their scenes

Of human anguish than the biggest fact.

They teach us still how we should think and act.