Gnats and Statues

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