An Infestation of Falsely Colored Barnacles on Thighs
Like painted barnacles on bronzes from
An ancient sea, our encrustations on
Ideas from distant times and cultures come
Between us and those statues from the dawn
Of civilization. The Aegean
As an emblem holds the beauties of
Old myths and minds. Surrendering paean
And paean in a shattered form of love
And heroism and the courage of the brain,
The sculptures and the other forms we know,
In part, from those primeval eons stain
With white and blue and make ribcages glow.
..We only have to scrape away the late sea growths
….And strain to hear the bronze-clad warrior oaths.