In the Palace at Knossos
In the palace at Knossos
Four-thousand-year-old stairs
Stack down to pantries
And labyrinths of halls
Where a half-beast bull hunted
And took eager sacrifice
In a maze of crimson-painted
Poppies and burnt-yellow saffron
Picked on a field of slate blue
By women with black hair and billowing pants
And golden hoops in their ears
As half-naked men jump dashing bulls for sport
On the fresco down the hall.
In the palace at Knossos
A language of lines and pictograms
Spells out the last day in the life
In the cramped hand of a man hunched over
Cracking, grey, earthy clay, counting the hours
Until his work is done.
Not knowing the fires that will consume
His stylus, language, and hand
Raze it all to dissipating smoke
Will leave his handwriting etched
Into the fabric of history
No more, no less
That night.
In the palace at Knossos
Myths walk the halls like ghosts
With the heavy gait of Talos
The bronze guardian of all Crete
A thousand feet high.
Because secrets are all that remain
Buried in broken stone
And sealed amphorae.
Dug up by men millennia later
Looking to find
Only what they already knew.
Now, in the palace at Knossos
Concrete coats the bones
Of the truth
So
People see exactly what they want to see.
No more, no less.
