Cathleen Sanford Haar

Mycenae 2013, An Epitaph

The darkening sky clamps down helmet tight against the mountains. A hissing wind
snakes through cracks in the walls made from boulders so heavy that only Cyclops
could have hoisted them into place. It’s our last day in Greece and it’s turned cold
on us, sudden as Clytemnestra’s revenge. Rain pocks the graveled ground, scrapes
like pumice on bare skin. Caught out by the weather’s abrupt shift, I falter and slip
on the slicked stones. You grab my hand. We make for the shaft grave’s trenched
entry, to shelter in the sparse bronze-age sanctuary. Inside, there’s only the dry scent
of antiquity and the flat floor of tamped down dirt. Not a whisper of Agamemnon,
king and commander, his flesh having rotted from bone long since. Whatever remains
has been left to mingle with goat droppings and shepherds’ myths. As we wait
for the storm to subside, the tall narrow doorway serves to frame jagged-edged
lightening that rips the firmament. Thunderclaps, loud as Hephaestus at the forge,
ricochet against the beehive walls. Awed by the rumble and roar, the ancient curses,
prophesies and sighs lapse into silence. We decide to make a run for it. Relentless
as the Furies, the tempest picks up again, harrows us till we’re back on ship, miles
out at sea, riding the Aegean’s wine-dark waves. A pulsing meditation, like the outward tide, carries us forward and away, towards Athens.
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Carolyn Sanford Haar was born in San Francisco and now lives in St. Louis.

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