The Roof-Watcher

After the Agamemnon of Aeschylus

Late afternoon of that unending year’s first day,
I cringed at clangs, at god strikes tumbling mountaintops,
Atremble for my distant lord’s demise, his fate
Portended by dark clouds, drum rumbles in the east.
When Iris sat her bow across the rain-spent sky,
A wonder sign of peace,
The joyous tears scurfed salt throughout my storm-soaked beard.
I gave up augury in summer’s shortening days,
A watcher, not a seer,
More like a roof-perched gull or master-waiting cur.
It took another pair of turning moons before
Each flash atop Arachne’s peak stopped sparking in
My heart the hope of beacon flame, of victory,
My eyes descrying phantom flickers, smoke in shade,
Strained till they smarted sore, slits swollen all but shut,
Each one a slingstone chafing in a sun-chapped pouch.
When finally off my shift and seeking Hypnos’ gift,
Mirage flames danced across the stage of my closed lids.
But winter winds, sun glares, days adding up to months,
Taught me loose vigilance, to let my gaze relax,
To let anticipation’s blinders slip away.
I started seeing things in court and street and grove,
Strange comings at the palace door. Orestes? No—
Another long-lost son.
No need for augury to read these naked signs.
I started wishing that the blinders never slipped,
And played the faithful hound dog keeping watch for them.
So when the flame erupted unmistakable
Upon net-weaver’s peak, the ultimate in a
Long line of signal fires, and Argives cheered that it
Was lit from Troy’s demise, that it would bring back warmth
To ashy hearths, I feared that it had kindled on
The bone-banked embers glowing in an Aulis pyre,
On Furies’ seething rage,
And in pots simmering on the palace cooking fire
Where once Lord Atreus prepared his heinous feast.
I feared that Troy was just a flame-thread in
The scarlet weave, that Mycenae would also feed
Blood-boiling fires that rage across our lives and lands.

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