sapere aude

Laurel of the Earth, weave your tale: grow honey-voiced women 

with purple garland hair--let no deathless deity 

preclude their singing.

O, Laughter-Loving Aphrodite, give to me the vision of Antheia, 

For Demeter only sends me prophecies of famine.

I am cursed with desire.

In the harvest I serve my purpose; I rise with Rose-Fingered Dawn

to bless fields of barley with Mother Earth’s kiss. I am untouchable,

forever a virgin in service to Olympus.

I crave the soft touch of wool, for the cloaks of Antheia 

hold no contest to the weavings of Arachne;

may Athena strike me down,

And reveal to me the nature of my hubris. Why am I in love?

I do not yearn for wool alone. I caught sight of her

last reaping, bronze-skinned and beautiful.

The grove of Artemis sheltered our lies--passionate meetings

unrecognized by state or man. Within a full cycle

our love grew with the violets.

Before the next sowing she is to be tied to a man, she shall crush grapes no longer a virgin. I fear for her weaving, and no longer wish to bless.

And so I cry:

“Leave the Polis to its wretched legacies! Assume an unmarked grave;

that our love be known in the blooms of the Hyacinth,

and the bones of the Earth.”

And in her grace, unknown to the Titans of chaos, I leave her.

The Huntress’s grove echoes in my loneliness, truly

I shall know peace, not love.

The dead of night falls as Selene pulls the moon. Her glow is like home.

The hermitage of Hephaestus is not my fate,

For love follows me with Antheia.