Low are the crickets of Delphi
With their chirping rays of sunset,
Like Phaethon to photon destructs
Into the fiery ruts of chariot wheels,
Or two eagles flying opposed on stringed vicissitudes,
A bird-yarning of sky from the omphalos stone,
The fulcrum of sung misery, a fishing net thrown,
As the half-bird and half-ion in siren’s undertones
Lure in subatomic orbs of ghostly parabolic swerve,
Into this blued Corinthian evening, self-vibrato,
Rocking like an empty boat from the dock rope,
Or an empty heart, unmoved by its own beating.
The Greek myth of Phaethon, son of the sun-God Helios, relays how he ignored his father’s protests and drove his father’s chariot across the world burning it in fire when it came too close. Zeus struck him down with lightning.
The Omphalos stone was considered the “navel of the world,” the center of all things and situated in the Ancient Greek province of Delphi. Myth relates that Zeus commanded two eagles to fly in opposing directions and they met over Delphi, which was ordained the center of the world. A copy of the Hellenic stone exists in a museum in current Delphi and is covered with a carved wrought net, which some interpret as the woven narrative of life and the tales of time.
