Poems From Providence - The Poet's Press

GANYMEDE
1
Night after night the pack of wolves came down
to stalk and ravage the peaceful flocks. Rams
fled and bellowed, ewes wailed while white lambs fell
and blood, black in the moonlight, stained the rocks.
Teeth gnashed at tender necks, bellies gave way
to serpent-sprawling innards, torn apart.
Dark silhouettes dragged limbs, ribs and gore
off to their own awaiting young ones. “Likos!”
the wolf-cry, made the blood run cold,
“Likos” made mothers reach for children,
elders to run for gorse-piles to increase
the fire that kept the hungry ones at bay.
At dawn, in cover of iron-gray clouds,
the men set out to find the lupine lairs,
hoping to slay the mothers and cubs,
then track and destroy the rest of the pack.
Never had so many wolves run wild;
never had so many flocks ’round Ilion
suffered such losses repeatedly,
as though a new kind of night-beast,
wily as man himself, strode on long legs,
feeding with jaws that never seemed
to fill a belly, as though they killed for sport,
Likos, then, or likanthropos —
the wolf that once were human?
The chief's son, young Ganymede,
too young to hunt, too gentle and kind
for the ways of killing,
remained at the shelter-cave with the women.