Ode to Odessa Cody Siegel 22

As the west rose above A black marble palace was rampaged with panthers and their wicked jesters Sinking into your tender lips and growing content But the starving creatures crowd around their crystal ball And dance about like mad children upon the fading moon

As the day’s divinity arises The sirens are silenced And the fine creatures rest I turn beside your pulsating touch and your fragile essence And there I lay awake-- Awake dreaming.

Ode to Odessa

Husk! who settles upon a river of haze, What squirrels and rabbits have you stored these days? What howling winds have yet to be unconquered Gazing over thine pale blue shadow You are mistress of the mist Queen of wetlands left fallow.

With thine radiant segments of clear crystal blue Casts a hue that illuminates an eternal light At any given moment- twilight or blind night.

As for the hot springs that glow and the mountains that weep Your tribal chant of glory erupts a ballad O so deep. From thine tail to thy ears dwells a coat of silver armour Dancing through a forest of fog As Your footprints haul a misleading charmer To where ghosts bewitch his fragile ailing mind.

They call thee a noble Odessa- once a warrior Now the queen Your majesty Idolatry to the Chukchi Heart to a winter never seen.

Cody Siegel