In the silence of the early Spring morning The ice melt, drips rthymically from the stable rafters Her breath forming small clouds around her head Like wreaths of courage She hones her arrows, sharpening her talents Talons bared, after a long Winter of despair Her childhood home infiltrated Filthy suitors eating their weight in food stores, Threatening her family, soiling the palace "Today it ends...", she declares in the colorless dawn
The advantage is no one knew she existed Ancient customs of hiding the girl-child lest she be harmed But like the season, the old ways had begun their melt In the sun that sets, she rises Odysseus is lost at sea or wanders the Elysian Fields Telemachus forever finds him and Penelope, Our Queen, is trapped between self-preservation and madness.
Clad in leather bodice and eagle's wings swiftly and lightly she enters the house Through an entrance of little use She glides to the balcony above the commotion Below the suitors feasting Ripping meat from the mass of beasts Downing flagons of wine and mead Harassing serving women and casting bones To the floor for house dogs and rats to clear
Suddenly a whisper, the sound of winged death As suitors fall, shocked by the arrow shaft protruding From barrel chests, druken tables upended and transgressors clamoring
Blessed Athena by her side turning arrows into raptors. So begins the Cleansing of the Suitors...
