Athena Leaves

Streaks of rising gold 
Like armour, hard and heraldic
Burnish the sky, collide
With the purple wash of evening.

The sun, in her due time
Chucks spears of gold at us 
To glint and score them
High over our town.

And she tosses her hair, well-
Pleased by such a 
Show of excess, her excelling
Darts lance a million miles

Of darkness, their comet tails
Fizz and splice the stars
As she laughs at her own unfailing
Fury, her tactics changing

Crimson in her travelling
High-up outwith our ken.
Beyond thought unravelling
She dwarfs this huddled place

With her shafts of speeding gold
Athena clashing and sparking whole tracts
Of copper cloud moulded
To her flying fists.  The heavens fire

A riot of rose-gold.  She fizzes red
And purple, makes us seem like
Gulliver's people tied and pegged
Down to such tiny lives -

We who can only stand dumb 
Open-mouthed and wordless mortals
Staring at such splendour thrown 
In a gold fit from some God's erratic hands.

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