Tell them that Pan is not dead and that he is coming…..
Sarah Abraham
An Invocation To Pan
by Hilary Llewellyn-Williams, British
from Hummadruz, 2001
Pan, even though a foster brother of Zeus, is the only Greek immortal to be reported as having died. Pan is taken be some to be a forerunner and herald of Jesus Christ.
The poet and classicist, Robert Graves, recounts the tradition in which a sailor called Thamos, sailing to Italy, heard a divine voice across the sea:
“Thamos, are you there? When you reach Palades, take care to proclaim that the great god Pan is dead!”
Robert Graves thinks that Thamos may have misheard the name.
I am with both poets, and superstitious and do not like to go through winter, especially winter, without the full divine complement and compliment.
Pan, white, light gray, dark gray and black marble. Roman, Imperial period, 1st or 2nd century ACE.
Private collection on loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY
Come, eye of the forest come, beast-footed stag-crowned man-membered; come, tree-sinewed soil-rubbed, leaf-garlanded; come, goat-nimble come, bird-joyful come, fox-cunning; out of the boles and burrows out of the humps and hollows out of the heaps of leaves; out of mist and darkness out of sunshafts, gold motes, flowers, insects humming: brown lying down in summer by the river your flute notes cool and black striding up from the woods in winter wreathed in fogs, your voice belling; come, old one, come, green one, tree-protector, beast-befriender good shepherd, wise steward: come, earth-brother long long lost long long lost let us find you call you call you up, out, back, forth – be here now! O musk of fur sour in the wind, your branched head
Marble statue of Pan, Roman, Imperial period, 1st century AD. Metropolitan Museum, NY
through the thickets coming, coming in your power, your power, your power.
