Sounion/Philoctetes
 
 

The ruined temple standing at the cape
is all right angles now. The sun’s bright coin
leans into the Aegean, where our days
are measured out and cut. I could be blind
in this light. I could feel the heat of noon:
the zenith hour, when only gods are out.
 
Here is a place to make an offering
to the Olympic gods. In this bare hall,
beside the anchored cruise ships, prick your ears
for Nemesis – who never sleeps. The press
of tourists would be none the wiser, though
that blue sky fell – that sea rose up in wrath.
 
I am the sum of all I’ve known:
it haunts me. In the placid day,
I dwindle, I reduce to bone.
I cannot send these dreams away.
 
Foot-wounded Philoctetes, as the Greeks
come fetch his bow, cries out to me in pain.
I still can smell how his old canker reeks.
They come from Troy and then sail off again.
 
I see him stumble in here with his wound,
that gives a man no dignity, and makes
of him an outcast. How he was marooned.
I see his spirit, and the nerve it takes.
 
John Isbell

If you have any thoughts about this poem,  John Isbell  would be pleased to hear them