“
And they say she has hair like the ravens
Her eyes, Panamanian seas
So green like the fields clover-laden
Vast like Mountains of Mourne over seas.
She carries her heart in her iris
The shimmering, Delphian deep
But you shan’t see natives there diving
For they fear what awaits in her keep.
Her darkness is gravity, drawing
A siren the sailors should know
The nymphs and the mermaids are spawning
A plan to entangle her glow.
“Very dark are the times, Aphrodite,
And dark will they be ever more
For the hearts of the men don’t fall lightly
And your lover won’t darken your door.”
Come with me, ‘fore the dark sets to claim you
And your beauty is lost in the deep
Where the mermaids are waiting to maim you
Where the nymphs have a noose for your sleep.
Come with me in the night, Aphrodite
I’m the last of your suitable hopes
Take my hand and I’ll ever so slightly
Relieve you of all of your woes.”
“Very dark are my days now, my suitor
But darker I’d see them with you
My lover has fled me in anger
And my beauty has taken its due.
The trees and the stalks try to steal me
The lakes swirl to swallow me whole
But such fates I will beg to come claim me
Should I ever be found in your hold.
My lover is gone but a moment,
Or forever—my heart counteth not
I’ll defend it until earth is over
Even after I die, as I rot.”
And they say she had hair like the ravens
Her eyes, Panamanian seas
Aphrodite, the fairest of maidens
Her enemies water and trees.
The water sought so to drown her
The waves craving beauty so sweet
The creatures would hiss but renown her
As she climbed the world’s rockiest peaks.
It was there that she battled the forest
The nymphs and her suitors and all
With her sword and her soul’s haunting chorus
For the lover she couldn’t enthrall.
— “Aphrodite” - Shawna Howson (June ‘11)
