Strangers at a busy hour
Glance casually at this garden
Where stones have not worn well
Since some minor Phidias carved them.
Sparrows chirp and stain
The poses of the obscure dead
Who gesture to each other,
A centaur revels on a sepulchre,
And there, a silent hero, time-decayed,
Cobwebs where his head has been,
Leans on an eroded pillar.
With missing knots of muscle
He flexes time-worn knees,
And watches with an absent look
The gnats beneath the olive trees.
©Terry Hodgson2020
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