Poem – David Beach

Laboratory Hill

1

The three young women, two young men – the 

loveliest the island of Greece could provide – 

were briefly joined by a sixth, a young woman

who managed to burst through the cordon of

priests. Then a young man nearly made it

through. But order was restored and the

five – each with their attendants/guards, high

priest, and the whole led by Giorgos, high

priest to Zeus – taken the final distance to

the crater. Here Giorgos stepped to one side,

maintaining precedence by holding aloft

his falcon-headed staff, while the youngsters

were marched to the tip of the platform which

had been built out over the hellish drop.

2

Making the drop indeterminate,

even while contributing to its

hellishness, steam hissed up from the depths,

still thick enough and whispering enough at

the crater lip to suggest spirits come

to witness this augmenting of their

ranks. The depths were also producing

rumbling, and tremors, some so severe as

to hold out the prospect there would be bonus

recruits. Giorgos himself, petitioning

Zeus to show favour to the Greeks, though

his resonant tones were unimpaired, was

standing noticeably further back from

the brink than strict ceremony required.

3

Proof against any scrutiny was the

pious fervour with which, breaking off his

supplications, Giorgos jabbed at the heavens

with his staff, enjoining as he did so

the faithful to behold evidence of

the divine will (and indeed, wheeling high

above could be seen – Giorgos was claiming

five though this was debatable – white

falcons, Zeus’s sacred bird and nesting

only on the mountain, inside the very

crater many believed) – Giorgos still seeming

to want to put his own white (silver)

falcon aloft as his exhortations turned

to the need to enact the divine will.

 

 

David Beach

Tagged with: , ,
Posted in Poem
Search the archive

More results...

Generic selectors
Exact matches only
Search in title
Search in content
Post Type Selectors
Filter by Categories
Architecture
Art
Autobiography
Awards
Biography
Byline
Children
Comment
Contents
ebooks
Economics
Editorial
Education
Essays
Extract
Fiction
Gender
Graphic novel
Health
History
Imprints
Language
Lecture
Letters
Letters
Literature
Māori
Media
Memoir
Music
Natural History
Non-fiction
Obituaries
Opinion
Pacific
Photography
Plays
Poem
Poetry
Politics & Law
Psychology
Religion
Review
Science
Short stories
Sociology
Sport
War
YA Reviewers
Young adults
Recent issues: subscriber-only access

    Subscribe to NZ Books to access the issues above

    Search by category

    See more