Epitaph of an Age

The congregation gathered
on the hillside at the dawn,
some had come to frolic
others came to mourn.
The poet spoke an epitaph
by a grave long overgrown,
and wept for the memory
of Apollo’s long lost bones.
Some thought he was perfect;
others thought him stained.
Many thought he brought the sun;
some thought he brought rain.
They wept for their lost savior
and carved his name on stones,
one claimed to hold a relic
of Apollo’s long lost bones.
They brought him from the east
to the steps of Athens grace.
They cast out the leviathan
the fates were soon replaced.
Carried by sword and spear,
by arrow and by stone,
all the world soon would hear
of Apollo’s long lost bones.
In Rome he forgot his name
and the priestesses soon fled,
he cut at the root of the vine
her statues lost their heads.
Known by a thousand names
and a thousand broken thrones,
names numbered like the days
like the saviors long lost bones.
At Delphi the oracle spoke
of a poet neath the waves,
who’d come to speak the epitaph
on Apollo’s long lost grave;
the keeper of the mirror,
the sleeper of the deep,
the serpent of the waters,
the crescent who must reap.
The congregation listened
to the oracles sad words,
they searched for any fractures
of the prophecy they heard,
and somewhere in the distance
they saw the vision fade,
as the sun sank into the sea
whence the light and waters played.
Farewell silver, farewell gold,
farewell stories told and untold.
Myths like sand that once was stone,
farewell to apollo’s bones.