Minoan Gold

Stalactites of honey; catacomb
of waxen hive where generous holy swarms
for centuries have worked in stony womb,

where fragrant humming air each morning warms 
and melts for Cretan tongues the ancient stores
each one of us tastes of and never harms

as it seeps from mid-cliff through rocky pores.
So narrow-waisted bees, since Midas' day,
have sweetened this down-trodden people's chores.

A sailor, once, scoffed at our Cretan way,
scaled the hill, and rapelled down to take
a vessel full to sell. 

                            Can insects pray?
The twisted cord became a hissing snake --
or so he shouted, fumbling with his sheath --
and swinging in air he slashed and fell, to break

in screams upon the flowering rock beneath.
Doge, Sultan, FŸhrer: despoilers come
and leave.  We live on what the gods bequeath.



Cumberland Poetry Review 18.1 (Fall 1998)


copyright Sarah Schneewind 1998