☀ Today's Poem: "Listen" Parmenides

Horses carry me as far as my longing can reach,
transport me to the many-voiced road of the Goddess
that carries the one who listens through the vast silence.

On that way I am carried, for the very wise horses know
where to go. They pull the chariot at full gallop, and maidens
lead the way. An axle blazes in its sockets—urged forward
at both ends by its whirling wheels—sends forth the eerie sound
of a whistle you hear traveling to the other world when you listen.

These young women, daughters of the sun, as they leave
        the house
of night, throw back veils from their faces with their hands,
and hasten to convey me into the light.

There stand the gates of the ways of Night into Day,
enclosed with a lintel above and a stone threshold below.
These ethereal gates themselves are covered with great doors
whose alternating bolts are held fast by Diké, goddess of Justice,
             who lets nothing past her.

Speaking gentle words, the maidens cunningly persuade her
to swiftly push back the bolted holder from the great doors.
As those gates fly open, they spin on their bronze axles
            fitted by nails and rivets, turn in their sockets
                        —one then the other—
                                    to make a wide opening.

Straight through them the maidens guide the chariot and horses
along the broad way. The Goddess welcomes me warmly,
takes my right hand with her right hand,
            addresses me and speaks this story:

“O youth, linked with immortal charioteers and with horses
    carrying you to our home, welcome!
It is not at all an evil fate sending you forth
       to come this way,
far from the beaten path of humans,
             but rather it is your nature, the order of things,
                            and your deep urge to listen.

“It is necessary that you hear all things,
    both the un-trembling heart of well-rounded truth
and the opinions of mortals,
    which hold no true belief.

“Nevertheless, you will listen to these also, how it is necessary
             that things as they appear be acceptable,
                        as they continually penetrate all things.”