the innocent water: its green blueness flashed
white accusations, which Hupakoë
ignored. He pondered how he should convey
the prophecy to Minos. In his youth,
he’d loved, some said, both righteousness and truth.
The Cretans were as innocent as their king:
they worshipped goats not bulls. But visiting
the Telchines, he saw them write in metal,
which made him think each spoken word a petal
ripped by the wind and rotting. Innocence
was lovely, but too light. He’d make it dense
as the orange metal where he wrote the laws
whose drafting clove his mind like scorpions’ claws.
But Crete changed slowly. Cretans were austere.
They did not curse the furrows’ winter fear:
they chewed raw grain plucked off the unplanted ear.
They lacked black dye. Their graves remained undug.
Each mother mourned as gently as a bug
(eternal death awaited its inventor).
Pure and unwounded wellsprings formed the center
of their brief lives. They savored each cold gulp
and did not slur their words with old grape pulp.
Their natural perception was complex
enough for them. They knew nonviolent sex.
Knossos was a just rumor. Urban life
allured no rats. No butcher honed a knife
aere legebantur, nec supplex turba timebat
iudicis ora sui, sed erant sine vindice tuti.
nondum caesa suis, peregrinum ut viseret orbem,