Athena Writes to Prometheus A Poem by C. E. Wendland
2339 W. Grenshaw Street, Apt. 2 Chicago, IL 60612 clara.wendland@gmail.com (404) 580-3355 August 16, 2016
Athena Writes to Prometheus Do you remember my birthday, Prometheus? Zeus my father felt me swelling, unborn within his head he felt the ridges of my nascent armor scraping, scarring the innards of his skull, broiling and bubbling the hard knots of my muscles unfurling and it was agonizing for us both. His head, hence unperturbed, exploding I clawing desperately to escape— If you had not rallied, if you had not split Zeus’s head agape with your saber I fear I may have suffered the same fate as my mother, who was absorbed by Zeus, a hapless mortal taken by a god. And when I sprang from his gore I screamed in unrepentant relief, I screamed in rage at my confinement in his head I screamed in ecstasy at seeing the light in my gauzy, untrained eyes and with those eyes the first thing I ever saw— Was you. Do you remember the battles, Prometheus? Zeus my father wished for a warlike child and he got one, fully formed and limber armor-clad and girded who—he loved this— sprang from his twain-struck head with a war whoop. My glorious appearance gave him mirth. And I never questioned, even when my father fought his father, uncles, aunts, all the blood that made him he warred upon till he alone proclaimed himself the king. I was kin to Zeus alone, his daughter. I thought these Titans were not my own blood. But I never told you, Prometheus, that on that most terrible of dark days those days when we alone strung our Fate-threads when we nearly shattered the weak world with our fury at our forebears I looked to the side and saw you with your father, Iapetus, and you were throttling him, fighting on our side, fighting your kin. The only thing in this now-wise world 1
Wendland
Athena Writes to Prometheus that ever made me tremble, made me pause— Was you. Do you remember the fire, Prometheus? Zeus my father was furious, whipped wild like a blizzard and he commanded that you should burn alive for defying him and bringing the precious fire to mortals. But you could not die, you defied his wrath for the one thing a god may never do is to take the life of another god. So he did the next best thing and that was to order his beloved war-like child to chain you to a rock and leave you there to eternal torture, naked and alone. I remember the fire that stung my eyes and the urging hatred that bloomed in me for my armor-clad and girded body. I wear the unwanted form he gave me before I had the self to ask for one and why was I—am I—compelled to be the war-like child, the faithful follower, the daughter who could not hate her father. I felt it all as I ordered Kratos to haul you, bound and chained and shamed away for I could not do it myself. And now here you are, and here am I, and now I know you hate me but I wanted to tell you Prometheus, the only man I have ever feared for— Is you.
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Wendland