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Paul J. Pastor's "The Oracle" · The Daily Poem

• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome back to The Daily Poem, a podcast from Goldberry Studios.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Sean Johnson, and today is Wednesday, January 7th, 2026.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: Today's poem is by Paul J. Pastor.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: It's from his new collection,
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: The Locust Years,
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: which was one of the best books of poetry I read in 2025.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: I'm excited for it to be featured here on the show,
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: and I have a good feeling you'll hear more about it as the year goes on,
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: because I keep thinking about it.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: The poem is called The Oracle.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: I'll read it once, offer a few remarks, and read it one more time.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: The Oracle
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  SPEAKER_00: She always speaks too little or too late,
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  SPEAKER_00: never has lied,
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  SPEAKER_00: but always puts the truth so on the lean that touch it and it tips.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: She wears a blindfold as she paints her lips.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: You go to her when desperate and alone.
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  Up from her navel comes the platinum word that cleaves you like
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  a plum clean to the middle.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: You see your pit reflected in her riddle.
• 1:02
  Of course,
• 1:03
  you wish to read these racking limbs,
• 1:05
  find sense among the entrails of your life.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: But you will be bad burned by each bright spark.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: Some lights are falser than an honest dark.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: The demon speaks.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: You offer nuts and dimes.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: The smoke goes up.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: You leave.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: The statue grins.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: And you will come again.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: You will forget.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: Because you do not trust the silence yet.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: It seems like such an apt New Year's poem.
• 1:35
  The oracle in view here is any number of ancient prophetic
• 1:42
  oracular entities,
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: most famous being maybe the oracle at Delphi.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: In the ancient world,
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  SPEAKER_00: you would go to the Temple of Apollo at Delphi,
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  SPEAKER_00: and inside you would find a heavily drugged priestess or priestess
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: temple virgin,
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  and the attendants would usher you into her presence after you
• 2:05
  had made your
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: monetary gift,
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  SPEAKER_00: and you would ask your question,
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  SPEAKER_00: pose your conundrum,
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  and the oracle would enter into some kind of ecstatic state and
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  then give you an
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: answer.
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  SPEAKER_00: But these answers were notoriously
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  SPEAKER_00: Easy to misunderstand.
• 2:25
  There's a famous example Herodotus records from the life of
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  Croesus of Lydia,
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: who goes to the temple,
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: goes to the oracle to ask if he should make war against Cyrus,
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  SPEAKER_00: king of the Medo-Persians.
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  SPEAKER_00: the oracle tells him, if you go to war, a great empire will fall.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: Croesus,
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  SPEAKER_00: who is prone to egotism and self-aggrandizement,
• 2:56
  believes beyond a shadow of a doubt that this means his enemy's
• 3:00
  great empire will
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: fall.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: But of course,
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  SPEAKER_00: The opposite turns out to be true.
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  SPEAKER_00: He is defeated,
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  SPEAKER_00: is sentenced to death,
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  and even watches as the fires are kindled on the pyre that is
• 3:13
  going to burn him
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: alive.
• 3:14
  And he barely escapes with his life after some divine
• 3:17
  intervention and becomes a
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: chastened and a wiser man who enters into Cyrus's service.
• 3:24
  But the lesson here is that the oracle isn't always going out
• 3:27
  of her way to give
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: you good advice.
• 3:29
  at this time in the year when maybe we're all looking for
• 3:32
  oracles where it's easy
• 3:34
  to succumb to that desire or that temptation to want a pat
• 3:38
  answer or a piece of
• 3:40
  guidance or what is more often the case we want an
• 3:44
  authoritative word that runs
• 3:46
  counter to what we in our heart of hearts already know is true
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  or what we in our
• 3:51
  heart of hearts already know we ought to do and that is the
• 3:55
  business of the oracle
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: Because the oracle is,
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: as we read in the final stanza,
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: demonic,
• 4:02
  wants us to be drawn into the pat answer that can be
• 4:06
  misinterpreted at will.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: Because as long as we are listening to the answer that the oracle gives,
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: we are not taking the time to listen to the silence,
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: where the truest and least ambiguous answers are often found.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: Here's the poem one more time.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: She always speaks too little or too late.
• 4:29
  Never has lied,
• 4:30
  but always puts the truth so on the lean that touch it and it
• 4:34
  tips.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: She wears a blindfold as she paints her lips.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: You go to her when desperate and alone.
• 4:42
  Up from her navel comes the platinum word that cleaves you like
• 4:45
  a plum cleaned in the middle.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: You see your pit reflected in her riddle.
• 4:50
  Of course you wish to read these racking limbs,
• 4:52
  find sense among the entrails of your life.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: You will be bad burned by each bright spark.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: Some lights are falser than an honest dark.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: The demon speaks.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: You offer nuts and dimes.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: The smoke goes up.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: You leave.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: The statue grins.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: And you will come again.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: You will forget.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: Because you do not trust the silence yet.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: This has been The Daily Poem.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for listening.
• 5:22
  We'll be back tomorrow with another subscriber episode and then
• 5:25
  here on the main
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: channel on Friday.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: In the intervening days and hours,
• 5:29
  you can find us at dailypoempod.substack.com to listen to our
• 5:34
  catalog of past
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: episodes or subscribe and support the show.
• 5:38
  For all of us at Goldberry Studios,
• 5:40
  I'm Sean Johnson,
• 5:41
  wishing you happy reading.