Gibraltar

 

“Gibraltar the Rock” by Ana Maria Edulescu

 

 

limestone sentinel
Europe’s own pillar
of Hercules guarding
the end of the world
with its African twin
Jebel Musa contained
ancient fears in their
wineskins of dark
superstitions where
drunken mythology
dampened discovery
limited reach of the
nautical senses to
emerald edges of
Mediterranean courage
with only mere wisps
of the grandeur that
once was Atlantis
retained by Homeric
Greek minds rich
imaginings fraught
with the legend that
all of existence had
drowned of an instant
instilling the notion
that no man or god
could prevent it from
happening over again
cataclysmic foreboding
imprinting itself on
a culture for whom
constant warfare for
realms of their hemmed
lands and seas held
no tempering terror
no moral inducement
to cultivate peace
after all it proved no
panacea for ancients
sublime in their
perfectly civilized state

 

 

From my books Ephemera and Legacies (vol. 2)