Athens Poem by Matthew Patterson

And should it rain today I dare not run but maybe duck beneath the dripping leaves of Ginkgo-fun and watch the wisdom run along the pavement passion beats; from street-chess benches above them hung the wind-tied flags in youthful fashion; they signify the times and magnify the rhymes of a swirling city with seven hills.

And if the sun should choose to come, we would not lose our sight.We would not fight the glaring beauty, reflections of our nights; whose images perchance the dreams of ancient pilgrims foraging these western streams for the simple freedom of living.

This place it seems is within that simple dream:a lonely town with peaks and valleys where poets often dally, and townsmen talking sometimes rally on sturdy stages made for greeting.With the lofty scholars often meeting atop a campus colored null; to the beatings of the past and present they fill their satchels full.

For there is something here worth seeing.And they are applying it at will.These learning-lovers have all been taught to drink life up and feel!They feel whatever they deem real from within this simple swirling city, their city of seven hills.

And as I sit on Clayton's coffee'd-corners counting people pigeons rest in perfect form upon their rooftop nests.With ease I feel the breeze that blows, and I contemplate what each year meant.So many more still yet to come. So few that I have spent.


-Matthew Patterson (circa 1996)