Poems Inspired by Greek Philosophers

cutest swap graphic ever!

Hello and Happy Poetry Friday! Be sure to visit Margaret at Reflections on the Teche for Roundup.

Now that baby boy is back in school, I can start catching up! I'm excited today to share with you the first Poem Swap treasure I received this summer... from Margaret, coincidentally! But first: bushels of hugs and kisses to Tabatha for creating and organizing the Poem Swap across the seasons! What a gift to all of us!

So. Margaret's poem was from a prompt in THE PRACTICE OF POETRY by Robin Behn and Chase Twichell to use a Greek Philosopher's quote as an epigraph. Here is her beautiful poem (which reminds me of my "sky" year!):

Listen to the Voice of the Sky
Dark and light, bad and good, are not different but one and the same. - Heraclitus

Listen
to the voice of the sky
which knows darkness
and light
are the same.

The sky plays
with light and shadow
as a cathedral painted
in stained glass.

Look to the sky
a gauge for weather --
acceptance of rain
as necessary,

indispensable,

as grass to the cow,
as solitude to awareness,
as life is to death.

- Margaret Simon

Lovely, isn't it?! And because this is what often happens during Poem Swap, I was inspired to write my own poem with a Greek philosopher's quote as an epigraph. Some of Margaret's themes bled into my poem as well.

A Murmuration of Acceptance

One thing I know, that I know nothing. This is the source of my wisdom. - Socrates

The day I learned I knew nothing,

poems swarmed the sky,

swooped across the sun like starlings,

as if one body

instead of a thrum of heartbeats,

a frenzy of syllables, 

a symphony of questions.

Nothing settled onto my chest

like a parched elephant,

not moving except for that endless lake

of skin twitching against flies,

and a voice said, you are exactly

where you are meant to be,

and in an instant the elephant dissolved –

all my worries retreated

to another kingdom,

my carefully constructed fears

crumbled and fell into a well 

with no bucket, no rope.

I knew nothing, but I wasn't lost.

Not part of the flock anymore,

not even a bird or a feather 

or a mite on a softly tucked wing.

Wisdom merely a small scrawl of letters,

and me the air a nightingale swallows 

when it sings –

not a song, no. Less than a breath,

for those accountants among us:

breath of a breath,

that can only ever become wind

when joined by a million

other jumbled alphabets 

brave enough to shape themselves

into words like nothing and forever,

before they, too, disappear.

- Irene Latham

Anyone else want to write a poem inspired by a Greek philosopher? Find quotes here.