Today's poem is by Rita Signorelli-Pappas
Pythia: The Process
First the slow ease of weightlessness,
then her lifted body woven
into a cold chrysalis of fern.Next the spiced scent of burnt laurel,
then a secret smoke of barley and pine
ghosting from a cleft in stone.Now again the ice gleam of wings
the melting pull of translucent butterflies
moving her to a tripod,now the bleating sacrificial goat,
then her own limbs trembling as
the freezing pin-pricks of Apollo's voicesprinkled through her organs
and breathed her out of herself
into a dim beat of thrown pebbles into the pulse of words.
Again she bent over a bowl of clear water
as it whitened into foam the particles of time dissolved
into a thunder of before now after
rising from the temple floor.Then the priest spoke and trance
released her, breath by breath.
Then her own music began.
Copyright © 2004 Rita Signorelli-Pappas All rights reserved
from The Literary Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission
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