Poetry
Zeus Replies to Prometheus Jessamine Price (in response to Goethe’s “I know of no poorer thing under the sun than you gods!”)
Rail on, Prometheus, take your pleas in triplicate to every court, tell anyone who’ll listen of your hardships, your bones still bruised from wrestling Titans, your rosy scars from stealing fire-secrets you don’t understand. Beat your outrage against the gates of grief and chance that you imagine standing at my door in some Olympian desert. You won’t find me there. Your cloudy sighs of joy and sorrow here in this cold morning of the world come from my lungs; your juicy, glowing heart swells with the weight of my blood. You scoff at gods for being only vapor, fogs— and then distill your laughter from our misty breaths. Your mockery sails on borrowed wings. Why would I envy your drafty shack? The dewy flame in your kitchen hearth trembles before the burning breath of stars that heats my home. The earth you stand on with your head cocked proudly is a stone to build my palace walls. Envying you would be like envying my own elbow. Time and Destiny, my masters? My brothers-in-arms, in fact! 20