POEMS
PETER FILKINS
After Homer
Iliad: Book XVII
...So they fought on, the thud of iron
pounding the neutral air of heaven.
Meanwhile, the horses of Achilles
stood by and wept, having just seen
yet another Patrocl us
laid out in the dust.
Even Zeus was moved to pity
their stony grief, two heads that seemed
to graze upon an unmarked grave,
mourning a man they'd somehow come to love.
And so they wept,
hot tears and sweat
mixing with dust, muddying their manes
as Zeus looked on, studied their pain,
And shaken, asked: "How could our kind
set you free among unhappy men
only
to know, and thus to bear
more misery yet at the hands of Hector?
"It cannot happen. Into your hearts and knees
I'll breathe fresh vigor.
Troy, Achilles,
both will be amazed at your swift flight
back to the ships, the echoing tide... ,"
as darkness falls where the horses stand,
and the god talks on; nothing sadder than man.
