Call upon the augur
to tell the man if he should stay or go
Pluck the feathers and see
if in the steam from strewn entrails
weave roads that lead away from home
If after pricking, the trickling blood
wends anew in the cobblestones
a thumping pulse
What think we of the haruspex?
The soothsayers and organ oracles?
Elbow-deep ungloved, unproved
Elbow-deep divining death or drought
or just another dark winter
Come
scoff at the backwards ways of pig fat and crow liver
to weave a tale of woe or hope
for a stricken village hanging
on every breath
of the white robed priest
Now go
Waltz in and out of the ivory halls of knowledge
Elbow-deep, scrubbed, step-tested
Elbow deep, delivering prognoses, predictions
and prideful certainty
You, with the white drapery, the shining headgear
and shining and sharper still instruments
You, who comes to the temple door
to tell what the organs speak
and if the blood still flows
May as well be a haruspex
