Centaurs

A suggestible bunch,
driven mad by the merest
hint of an echo of the faintest whiff
of wine.
Best excluded from wedding parties
where they are likely to
carry off all the women
in a whirlwind of the libido's uproar,
galloping into the night, into the mountains,
yodelling.
At their most unregenerate,
Nissus,
attempting to rape Deianeira
in mid-stream;
giving her the "love potion'
that kills Heracles.
Transformed, the Centaur abandons
chaos for mystery,
fire-water for medicinal herbs,
and becomes Chiron
who sculpts a statue of Actaeon
to comfort his hounds:
those who are torn apart
may come together in his art,
those rent by illness
be made whole.
When wounded himself,
in never-to-be-ended pain,
he trades immortality
with mortal Prometheus
without regret,
journeying back into
the great circle of dreams,
becoming the Archer —
whose power unites
instinct with grace,
the clean arc of his arrow
held back, always ready.