- Orion lost, followed the hammer-sound,
- gray noise repetitions, crushing cacaphony
- to Lemnos, to Hephaestus, the smith-god’s cult
- to the presence of fire; the billows . . .
- Here began the initiation,
- Here, the story gets vague.
- Hephaestus, son of Hera—prior to Zeus,
- thrown off Olympus—
- tumbles & lands feet first—
- a permanent limp— splat!
- on Amazonian Lemnos. He, flawed, with a talent
- for transformation—of metals, with tongues of fire . . .
- Clang! Energy exchange taught by Thetis,
- she who lost her first two sons to (Isis’) fire.
- Hephaestus returns to Olympus,
- married Aphrodite, emerged from the sea.
- Gimpy Hephaestus reflected her beauty
- with knowledge & inventiveness
- —the net he made to catch his wife in bed with Ares.
- “Eternity loves the productions of time.”
- He able to hold—the mindful moment—
- love & war caught as one.