For which He waits (poem)
Written after a visit to the ruins of the Sanctuary of Delphi, Greece, in April 2023.
Prefatory note: the Sanctuary at Delphi was the site of many temples in the 1st millennium BC, and possibly earlier, before its final destruction in 390 BC. It therefore predates the Christian era by some centuries and operated long before monotheism gained more traction. In this poem, I name Apollo not as a pagan deity but as a particularized expression of God, of the Absolute, hence the use of a capitalized He in the title and the use of “Divine One” in the poem. However mistaken we might consider the religious sensibilities of the ancient Greeks, I believe that God, in his infinite Love, accepted their devotion nonetheless even as today He accepts sincere devotion in any form.
Overland
Oversea
They come
Across the plains of Thessaly
Through the passes of the Pindus
Sailing the Aegean into the Gulf of Corinth
Braving deserts of Lydia and Persia
They converge on the Navel
Marked by the eagles of Zeus.
To the Sanctuary they come.
Questions, oh, so many questions
Broiling in their minds
Of marriage and money
Of family and fame
Of power and prestige
Of commerce and conquest.
Questions that aren't questions,
For choices they are, already made:
Choices sealed in their souls
Sealed by desires and lusts
Sealed by the fate they believe
Decreed by the gods,
Yet which come truly from themselves.
They come in yearning
To the slopes of Parnassus
To the Sanctuary on the hill
To the Temple of Apollo
To the chamber of His oracle
Seeking there not guidance
Not answers
But validation—Apollo's sanction—
For the courses upon which
Their hearts are already set.
"O foolish mortals,"
Laughs the One Divine,
"Always would I tell you
All you need to know—
The secret of joy everlasting
If but once you would listen
With an open heart
An open mind
To ask the one question
The one already answered."
Yet they come,
Time and again they come
With all questions save the one.
They come, they ask, they leave
In the oracle's answer most satisfied
Pausing not the alternatives to entertain
Pausing not the consequences to assess.
Apollo, never imposing,
Laughs gaily at mystic tidings
Pronounced through the Pythian priestess
Delighting in verities yet veiled
Mistaken so easily by passion’s sight.
Should even the likes of Croesus
Demand an accounting,
The Divine One can yet reveal:
“The truth I ever told—
It is you who could not hear.”
Apollo, ever compassionate,
Weeps, too, for the gifts He would bestow
The wisdom pouring from Olympus
That finds no place in ego's realm.
To earth it falls uncaught, unheeded
The wisdom that would free the soul
Lost in wars, lost in looting
Lost to those Apollo loves.
Centuries pass
Kingdoms clash, empires fall
The oracle muted
The Sanctuary succumbs to ruin
Quarried, covered, converted.
Twice a thousand winters
Apollo sleeps
Roused seldom by sincere worship
Or even sincere inquiry
Even when the solar light
Once more touches
The marble shrine of its own Self.
Until, unto the Sanctuary of old
A wise one ventures
Sits quietly
Reflects
Feels
Withdraws from the outer tumult
From the fray of modernity
Penetrating the shrouds of time
And the millennial layers of neglect
To ask at long last
The singular question
The one for which Apollo awaited in vain
The one never voiced to the oracle:
"What most need I to know?"
The oracle, muted still,
Yet smiles.
The wise one smiles, too.
For the answer is already given—
Written on the entrance long ago.
The answer to all the questions.
The one thing needful
Always there before every seeker
Before their eyes
Before their hearts
Before they even left their homeland.
“What most need you to know?
Thyself.
Know Thyself.”
And Apollo smiles.
Beautiful poem and images
Thank you for sharing. I appreciate that your devotion embraces a reality larger than It's various expressions. The part about the thousands of years passing touched my heart.