How bitter the venom of unrequited love
That turned Phaedra’s lips blue,
As Hippolytus picked meadow flowers
On the heights for Artemis.

How severe his beauty as he pursued his fate
In the wilderness, how brutal his death
Dragged by his own horses over the precipitous
Rocks above the beach by the Saronic sea.

In the palace Phaedra dangled from her ceiling; while
Hippolytus died at the gate from his father’s curse
Only to rise again immortalized by his goddess and
Hidden away in an Italian wood.

Sharing cover with a weeping nymph,
Hunting with Diana on moonlit nights,
Lamented in Troezen by your boy troop, so
Hippolytus you became one of the minor gods!

[Michael Routery is a writer and poet living in Northern California. His work can be found in a wide variety of publications, including Beatitude: 50,Datura, and the Bibliotheca Alexandrina devotional anthologies, Written In Wine, Bearing Torches, Unbound, and Out of Arcadia. ]