Sudden Syllaeum’s Epiphany

Instead of taking the path
of the main approach
that came into my view
only at the very end,

like a goat I climbed
a steep slope of the hill
of the ancient ruins
of Syllaeum or Sillyon

with its many dried-up wells
or cisterns on the top
and an occasional spring
still gushing from old cracks.

And thus I circled round the town
searching for its theater
to see it swanning
with its rowing seats,

and only after much of wandering
I saw it last and found its fate:
the whole theater had crushed
down from the hill in 1969—

forty-four years before, being there pulled,
I came to see that site at last;
only some Odeon rows remained—
few feathers that had failed to fall.