A Poet At The Parthenon - No.2 Poem by Daniel Brick

Thomas Rinehart,27, Cambridge graduate in Attic Greek, author of an acclaimed volume of poems; London critics have predicted his next volume might well establish him as the Poet of His Generation.

My dear sister, Cynthia of the clear waters
and quiet streams, when we parted seven months ago,
I promised I would greet you from the plateau
of the Acropolis, at the Parthenon itself,
and send you your heart's desire from the heart
of Hellas. Consider that a promise fulfilled.
Dear sister, I called you the Mirror of my Mind.
Brace yourself to receive information that
will darken that mirror. Then it is my sincerest
goal to polish that mirror brightly again. Cynthia,
I so need you help... Remember what we talked about,
sitting under a star-strewn sky at night or looking
over a vast field of grasses and crops that stretched
to the horizon, both day and night our visionary
powers themselves stretched, yes, the so exhilarating.
Oh, how are minds are linked by our mountain, Green Crest,
imagined into being by two poets, yes, Cynthia, two poets.
You have ever been as much the poet I have been, only those
obtuse London editors fail to grasp what is so real to us.
And now, Cynthia, you must be poet for both of us. The gods
and gracious goddesses will demand it of you, and they will
pour precious incense over us, one of us among the living,
one of us among the witnesses of the living in death's realm.
My dear sister, how could I wreck our last moments together
by telling you the sickness which claimed our parents will
soon claim me? My hands were empty. The only gift I could
give you was a false hope that last year's farewell
was not our final farewell. Cynthia, be the Moon-Goddess
of your Age! Add the dark music of your poems to sounds
of your time. You have my permission to grieve my passing -
for a while. Then you must LIVE to keep my memory alive.
Read my poems even as you write yours, you must write yours.

Cynthia, beacon of my heart, I want you to be happy: I want
you to seek and find your heart's partner, a man who
will appreciates all of you, I want you two to name
your first-born son after me. Tell him about his uncle
who loved life, loved poetry, loved you. Teach him hope,
show him our Green Crest, the lakes and streams, the spring
after the winter, the talking trees, make him live always
a large life and in his triumph a part of me prevails.
My Cynthia, forever....