Corbies Reconsidered

-for Athena's bright-eyed namesake

Every flash-winged magpie knows,
(Vide Trivers) the smarter we are,
The cleverer, the more deceptive,
The more alert to deception
As danger and joy we must be.

The brightest of the ancient
Greeks, no, not Plato,
Not Pythagoras or Heraclitus,
Not Aristotle or Archimedes,
Odysseus was a complete fiction

Within a partial fiction,
Telling exaggerations
While disguised by his ally,
The clever, dissembling goddess
Assembled with shield, spear,

And owl. Even the owl
Was a brilliant appropriation
And feint. Having a raven,
A crow, or a magpie on her shoulder
Would have given the game away.

An owl! Every corvid knows
A scrub jay has the wisdom
To outwit anyone or anything
Fooled by the gaze of that owl.
Owls have no appreciation

For the shinier, finer, inedible things,
Like the outside of a good story,
The empty wealth of night skies,
The truth kept safely for later,

Or an owl as a wide-eyed disguise.