Breaking the Jaws of Silence: Sixty American Poets Speak to the World

Athena Looks On

DAVID MASON Athena Looks On “Back off this bitter skirmish; end your bloodshed, Ithakans, and make peace.” —Odyssey, Book XXIV (trans. Robert Fitzgerald) Athena looks on. The whole earth is bruised. Enough, enough. My eyes are abused by so much carnage. Enough, enough. It needs to be said. The suicide bomb in the afternoon killed only beauty. A husband alive, a girl in her grief, say, Where is our Father? and where is relief? Athena’s gray eyes have foreseen it all. There is no surprise that does not appall. The child in your arms is already dead. Athena looks on, looks on from a head split open by birth, spit open by death. Athena looks on, 46 ✦ DAVID MASON Athena looks on. She looks on and on. It needs to be said. DAVID MASON ✦ 47 ...