Arena

Arena

Where do the muses live?
Not in Greece, not in the ether,
but, like viruses,
like myths, like the higher human aspirations,
wherever there is receptivity.

Occasionally they cohabit.
Clio, muse of history, will collaborate with anyone.
Urania, muse of astronomy, is uniquely a loner.
The mentors of comedy and tragedy
have a spontaneous affinity.
The others, counselors of fine language,
of music and dance,
are natural companions.

Their situations are amorphous,
communal in the hypothalamus, the amygdala,
with the passions, the moods,

with an inconstant self,

perhaps more than one indeterminate alterself.

All, all given to perfidies.