Aphrodite reborn

Aphrodite...ancient...goddess of love, lust, beauty, pleasure, passion and procreation.

Major goddess of the Greek pantheon, daughter of Zeus and Dione.

She rose from the throat of the foam,

not birthed but formed

a pulse of longing, gathered from salt and sighs

How many fathers did you have?

They say you are born from the foam (ἀφρός, aphrós) produced by Uranus's genitals, which his son Cronus had severed and thrown into the sea.

What horrid violence between father and son

Ah, Cronus...thou primordial deity, a myth intertwined with time and the origin of the universe...Serpent and three-headed god.

Did procreation work differently back in the days of yore, for foam could very doubtfully do the job of producing your lovely form.

Yet, maybe with magic and perhaps a bit of witchcraft added to the soup, anything was possible then.

Are you Aphrodite Urania (a transcendent "Heavenly" Aphrodite, who "partakes not of the female but only of the male", inspiring love between men, but having nothing to do with the love of women.

Or are you the epithet Aphrodite Areia (the "Warlike") possessing a contrasting view of sexuality.

Her eyes are shipwrecked lanterns.

Her breath: coral and cinders.

Every step upon the shore

leaves heartbeats blooming in the sand.

She carries no mirror... she is the mirror,

rimmed in gold and impossible questions

Do you desire, or are you desired?

Stars bend to her hips.

Oaths unravel in her wake.

And when she weeps,

roses drip from the wounds of the ocean.

Her teardrops fuel the lifeblood of women everywhere

And every woman embraces the different facets of themselves...diverse, many dimensioned, enigmatic and fierce.

Search by the sea for the goddess hidden within all women

Find the goddess in the symbols of seashells, myrtles, roses, doves, sparrows, and swans.

Celebrate her annual festival in midsummer. Where Aphrodite was worshipped as a warrior goddess...the patron goddess of women.

Midsummer may find us by the sea...searching for OUR inner goddess

We will listen to the seashells, the doves and the swans

As the lovely Aphrodite walks by our side

Cheering us on.

Even silence courts her.

Even gods forget themselves

just to speak her name

as if it were a spell

that might give beauty

the power to break.

Each century finds her anew:

~As the song the sirens sang after their mouths were sealed with coral

~As the blush on a blade before it chooses mercy

~As the mirror sealed in the tomb of a queen who loved herself too much to live

She dwells in the drowned temple

where statues melt from wanting.

Lovers arrive barefoot, blindfolded,

bearing gifts they do not understand.

She takes none.

She offers none.

She is not love

She is what love becomes when it is mythic.

Not a balm. Not a promise.

She is the shattering

that makes longing holy.

......

The prompt.