Faith

Athena, your neck is pale
As a Greek bust, your marbled skin
Sends shivers down my spine,
As if a mountain arched the snow
And sat. You are not the goddess of spring-time,
Nor goddess of the fall: your altar is plain,
And cold, the columns of your temple.
The round architecture of the Greeks,
Curling into pizzicati of hosannahs,
Like the flames that lick your austere frame,
Rebukes you; you spurn it and prefer
The world reformed in barren words,
A picture of the earth as fading blue. Your eyes
Are blind to the tides that roll below the temple,
Where cliff knives sea and sea cuts cliff
Into archipelagos of the pebbled shore,
Washing the crusted silt back.
Hear my feet sink in the sand;
I smell the fresh sea breezes
And wait -- Athena, my love, my faith.