The flowers spread their wings and take to the skies,
Crackling with the smoke of candles once lit,
Of the incense that once floated on serene clouds
Up to the mouths of the eager, deathless gods above.
You join them, touching the edges of their petals
With the unwary fingers of children and the childlike.
They open to your touch, shivering in the breeze
That sweeps through the lofty heights so far from earth.
Together, you descend back down to the ground.
The flowers weave themselves around your throat,
Secure in the lazy warmth that cascades down from your lips,
Light-scented and as gentle as a shower of shooting stars.
Antheia, Pais and Autorote. You gather the flowers that stray
As once you gathered your children, holding them against you.
Behind you, the Milky Way shimmers, smiling with the secrets
It holds, and the promises that it still remembers, even now.

[Laria is a Hellenic Polytheist, and has been so since roughly June of 2009. She pays particular devotion to the gods Aphrodite-Ananke, Ares and Rhea-Kybele, among others. She have been writing — both fiction and poetry — for five or six years or so and can be reached via email.]