The Sibyl

JOAN LA BOMBARD

JOAN LA BOMBARD

THE SIBYL

Power lies in my hand

To rear the olive grove,

The grey-leaved, sacred tree

Where hawk and adder move,

The emblematical

Of feather and of fang.

If I lift my wand

Carved of the olive wood,

A woman-headed serpent

Doubles its golden tongue

For evil or for good

Whereof I speak.

I raise the marble column

By the wine-dark sea,

A raging, changing sea

Where all is tossed, or spume:

Out of my sea-dark word

The pillar stills in time.

I hollow the sea's shell

For sound to gather in,

The oceanic music

Clanging its bronze bell

Foams of my white hands

Which mold its song.

I wait in the dark grove,

Power leashed in my wand,

A hawk gripped on my shoulder,

My serpent wreathed and twined

For the prophetic wounding;

From trance I strike.

The column, the white shell

Flame on the olive tree;

Past all seas' estranging

The sunned form will be,

And in my eyelids blaze

Acanthus and grape leaf.