Riders, Parthenon Frieze

These riders have almost no space,
caracoling from A to B,
wrist shoulder elbow hoof and knee,
the horses rearing back in place,

almost no space but endless time,
sheltered from weather, nervously
grouped in close proximity,
their cluster here a kind of home.

Where are they going? You can see
light strike the faces; they move on
out of the shadows toward dawn.
Or is that radiance sun on stone?

All of them pointed the same way,
a muscled chest, a close-clipped mane,
a mantle flung over an arm,
quivering, eager, barely reined

in. Beyond vagaries of flesh,
laughter and joking, heat and flies,
manure left steaming in the dust,
their stillness is a silent praise

distilled and captured here, contained,
snatched from time and carved and caught,
life in its restless readiness
and what remains and what does not.

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Rachel Hadas

Rachel Hadas's new works include Piece by Piece (Paul Dry Books), Love and Dread, and her most recent book of poems, Pandemic Almanac. She is one of some forty translators of Nonnus's massive epic Tales of Dionysus (University of Michigan Press, 2022). Her new book of poems, Ghost Guest, will be published later this year.

Also by Rachel Hadas (see all)

• Voyage - March 2, 2023
• Though Much Is Taken, Much Abides:Fifteen Years of Literature & Medicine - May 22, 2022
• The Labyrinth, the Septic Tank - October 30, 2021

Author: Rachel Hadas

Rachel Hadas's new works include Piece by Piece (Paul Dry Books), Love and Dread, and her most recent book of poems, Pandemic Almanac. She is one of some forty translators of Nonnus's massive epic Tales of Dionysus (University of Michigan Press, 2022). Her new book of poems, Ghost Guest, will be published later this year. View all posts by Rachel Hadas