THE DELPHIC ORACLE
~Mary Pratt, (Pre Raphaelite Sisterhood, 1848)
Smoke rises before the girl
seated on her three-legged stool.
Behind her, the cave mouth
shades into a purple dark.
The supplicant stands
like a pillar, her robes
still as sculpture.
Keep looking.
Smoke mingles
with thin cloud in the pale
sky, shaping horses.
Keep looking.
The supplicant’s arms are rising
toward the heavens. Listen.
Between the sky and the cave,
the oracle has begun to speak.
GladErrand 