sapere aude

Living statue, bronze of the Gods! Do not let love’s loss be your demise. 

Listen to the winds of your lover’s home,

and let the singing carry you.

In Ephyra’s Polis of reaping and stone, my statue was made

in living bronze. From the likeness of Hera it was cast, 

and so I was born Antheia of Kórinthos.

No childhood is wrought in iron, nor tenderness 

of the flesh. I am a mirror to man’s image,

a servant to my home.

I saw you at last harvest, Oracle, letting barley 

kiss your legs before they were cut. 

Your gentleness moved me.

My clumsy hands, vita ex machina, wove fresh wool

in attempts to gain your attention. Aphrodite

blessed me with success, and doomed me

with the attention of another man, a city general fresh from war. 

I could not smell difference in his bloodied aegis

and my own rust. 

And so I look to you, dear Oracle, you with

faith in shreds, heel-stricken and lost

to the tides of Aegean love.

You called to me in a voice as sweet and desperate as

the cry of Phoebus Apollo, watching his dear

Hyacinth dying. 

O, lover of vineyards, blessing of my heart, 

this was not your decision to make, 

but mine. 

I am not bound to blood and rust, nor the cries 

of Man-Slaughtering Ares. Your weeping

I shall follow. 

Give me your blessing, dear Gods! May Pallas Athena grant me

the owl’s sight, that I not be lost

to the endless wood.

Yet sight I do not need. The soft coo of the partridge

draws me to the West. In darkness I find you, 

Oracle, my love.