The Parthenon

George Hobson

• Publisher: Resource Publications
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781532690037
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Religious Poetry
• Index: Literature

The twenty-seven poems in this collection were written over a period of many years. They vary greatly in style and length.The poems in the first two sections are lyrical. Natural beauty evokes wonder and tugs at memory. Creatures dance and sing. There is joy. The last poem in Part II, "The Generations," shifts tone abruptly. There is conflict and loss. In the end, with the dolphins, beauty renews hope. "The Generations" is a bridge to the complex narrative poems and dramatic lyrics in Part III.Here the tragic is displayed, but also the divine power that redeems it. Part IV plunges into our modern abyss. The poems are an anguished cry from the heart of the fog enveloping our civilization. The long poem, "The Fog," evokes the plight of lost and lonely individuals tending their private campfires in the night of the world, cut off from transcendence and marooned in the abstract unreality of the digital universe. Part V carries forward this momentum, referencing the genocidal violence of our age, but then moves from darkness and horror up into the light of revelation and peace.

Part I

March Morning

Glazed ferns gleam through tenebrous fir,

Stirring memories that rise,

Like trout to glinting lures,

From root-wheels and sodden logs

Mired on the bottom of years.

Slabs of sun and shadow

Stripe a grassy roadbank

Opposite a stand of pine trees

In the hills west of the Roannais

Above the bright-shining sword

Of the River Loire.

Mid-March,

Morning,

Balsam air.

Here, there,

Birds flit,

Twitter,

Sit like notes on the staffs

Of the scores of the bare branches.

All is on the verge.

On the ridge-tops, blue surges,

Scattering bibulous cloud

Hung over from night.

Blue strides down the green valley,

Embracing the willows,

Lovely in light gowns,

Shaking their tresses,

Their lemon tresses,

Laughing in welcome.

Across the hills, meanwhile,

Like salt grains on baize cloth,

Sheep graze solemnly,

And the Charolais cattle,

Sculpted in chalk,

Stand motionless,

Outside of time.

The Bowl

Under light, O bowl, paint for me,

By dahlias and peaches interposed,

The coral edges of a tropical sea.

Reflect your maker’s Maker’s merriment

At costumes lent by fruits and blooms

To your curvaceous finery.

Your colors whoop like schoolgirls out of class;

Like twinned lips of lovers pulled close

By beauty’s sweet force,

They quiver.

I nudge the glass,

The water stirs.

The sea on beaches at the world’s end sloshes,

The lovers sway among the blossoms.

Ocean sighs.

Late sun dyes the bowl vermilion.

I jar the glass again.

Creatures spring to life, myriad.

“Father, the circus is in town—

Can we go?”

We skip all the way.

Why, this is creation!

The world’s being born!

Elephants stomp through purple dahlias,

Tigers p...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Foreword
• Part I
• Part II
• Part III
• Part IV
• Part V