A Talisman

I didn’t know the details.

I feared the details.

I loved the details.

The details, said etymology,

were our first cuttings. De-

tailor, did you know

where you came from?

From taliare, to split:

talea, a stick

companionably unstuck.

Long enough to look

at the realities

of luck:

wishbones,

each to one’s own

taste of it, what’s enough.

In Sanskrit: talah, wine palm,

and in Greek: talis,

a marriageable girl.

Dividing /

divining back

as far and old as Thalna,

goddess of youth

to the Etruscans, fresh

as any branch begins as

some loose, unlikely

end of a tendril;

some cleave of a leaf.

___

In details lost and found,

there were days of games

and days of fasting

and although these

were the same days,

days of feasting

were interlaced like

so many flights of birds

in that certain composed,

but hurried, hunger.

How often was it content

to be contested, paradise?

Paradise rained

into failing soil?

Paradise evaporated?

Did it ever pick up?

Before starting over new

as a people, the Etruscans,

waiting 18 years in their old home,

Lydia, gathered half their number—

plus whatever wits they honed

from hungry days of dice—

and moved.

___

They say life is more than starting over.

Maybe it is, Sun.

Maybe it is, Moon on the pines,

your practiced light on dark,

silvery green needles

before there were leaves;

before leaving,

the common grace of nights and days

left to each. Left to search,

through founderings,

for findings,

whichever can be moved; removed;

replenished or replanted.

___

In the beginning of a history,

Herodotus told his story

of the Lydians

and their famine

and their wise ruler who decided

there should be games,

games to keep the peace in place

in the turmoil of  hunger.

Games on days

when food could not be served.

Playfulness and sustenance,

for however long, happily confused.

Herodotus himself didn’t know

that the Lydians were Etruscans

in their old life, before the move

to land they would be known,

and renowned, by. Mystery

finally solved, to the letter.

Mystery, all the same,

remains in its remains.

Herodotus,

would you be shocked

to know what DNA can say,

stretching back through hindsight,

all the way to wonder?