Diane Dickinson
Softening the Chaos
At Delphi, fumes emanate
from temple crevices.
The Oracle rises
in a hallucinatory drift
and answers, or not, to
Sybil, Pythia, her many names.
Her rants and wild cries
reverberate in the ears of the mountains
She, the god’s only lover, a menstrual dance
coursing through her.
Python, earth-dragon, still writhes against Apollo, undefeated.
The Oracle’s echoes, like the rainy drizzle, dissipate into
the roses, daisies, wavering azaleas,
purple almond trees, tasseled hyacinth
at the foot of Parnassus.
All to temper a god’s rancor.
I return to this place to witness it,
drawn by what I have no word for.
Softening the Chaos
At Delphi, fumes emanate
from temple crevices.
The Oracle rises
in a hallucinatory drift
and answers, or not, to
Sybil, Pythia, her many names.
Her rants and wild cries
reverberate in the ears of the mountains
She, the god’s only lover, a menstrual dance
coursing through her.
Python, earth-dragon, still writhes against Apollo, undefeated.
The Oracle’s echoes, like the rainy drizzle, dissipate into
the roses, daisies, wavering azaleas,
purple almond trees, tasseled hyacinth
at the foot of Parnassus.
All to temper a god’s rancor.
I return to this place to witness it,
drawn by what I have no word for.
Diane Dickinson has worked as a research analyst and business writer, and lives in the Detroit area. Her poems have appeared in California Quarterly, Altadena Review, and The MacGuffin.