Once upon a time

(not as far as you’d believe),

they would have called me a monster---

a “griffe”

half-eagle, half-lion.

A quarter of me here,

and the rest lost within Africa. 

America the Technicality. 

 

But griffe is short for Griffin,

like the mythical creature

in the texts of our ancestors. 

 

His bald head and bird’s eye 

could survey the peak of Mount Olympus 

while his talons split the seas

for waves of Mediterranean fish.

His body sprinted faster

than any life of the Savanna,

his tail whipping behind him

ever flowing as the Nile. 

And his great, magnificant wings 

soared all over the world:

 

over the sands of Persia

and the snows of Himalaya 

and yes, above the American fruited plains,

but he always soared back to the pyramids

to rest his feet on the arm of Ra. 

 

The king of the beasts and air

reunited with the god of the Sun,

residing in the crown of the pharaohs.

The gold that courses through my blood,

the myth, living among men,

as I don my robe of stars and stripes.