0016 Orpheus - Or His Lute?

It was his listening; he listened to himself; he listened to himself listening to his lute; his lute perforce listened to itself; listened to itself listening to him..listened to the measures of all things, even the measures of mankind.. space, air, listened to his listening; listened as the eagle made a silent, perfect circle around a centre in its mind high above Delphi that clear morning; listened to the silent cliffs across the gorge, silently ominous in their listening; the stream which trickles down past the carved theatre, cool and clear enough to wash your face; look up the mountain and hope it sacred, holy; it plashes like curiosity pursued, down towards the river which is a mere pencil line at the bottom of the gorge in this so unexpected place; the sea barely visible in the distance, misty with its myths unspoken; space listened and loved his music, allowed this scene; a cool air, this morning elsewhere hot, descends gently down the mountain to the gorge, curves past these rocks where a dark shadow here or there could be where the Sibyl listened too. we thought, boarding the hot bus, that we were tourists; then we looked, became pilgrims; then something more, more like worshippers of the unknown god whose altar we left behind in Athens, silent beyond questions, listening to the space as if the space itself listened to some instrument well tuned, a voice perhaps, silent, powerful. the sun, the sunlight, moved from rock to rock this cool, clear morning, waking clumps of sparse bright flowers, woken again by morning bees who may be unaware – or born to know— they forage at a world heritage site as do we visitors, at Delphi, where still truth speaks in silence; bees who listen to each other, dance their satnav trails, listen inwardly to flowers, to honey, and what else