“You have been near to him,” she said, before she ran
To catch her sisters, laughing, dressed in gold and white.
Her kiss still tingled on my lips; a dream so real,
It woke me up.

Perhaps he bid his fellows show me favor too.
I never see the face of bright Apollo, but
Among the myriad, tangled paths my life could take,
He lights the way.

My body knows the strength brave Dionysus brings.
I feel Athena’s wisdom penetrate my own,
And deathless Aphrodite breathes her deathless fire
Into my soul.

Did they behold the cloven hooves beside my crib,
The shaggy beard that parted in a smile, the great
God Pan, who bent his goat-horned head to countenance
My tiny form?

The sacred grove is empty now.  No priestess waits
To brush my lips with magic.  Yet, I live her words
As though she came this very night to bid me greet
Another dawn.

[Gordon Cash is a lifelong professional scientist, and he has been interested in Ancient Greek language and mythology for almost as long.  He lives in Annapolis, Maryland, USA, with his wife and their four cats.]