Aphrodite among the sparrows

She loves her sparrows, watches them all day.
It's her idea of resting. Feeds them grain.
Smiles as they cluster round her when the rain
is falling and she keeps them dry. Their play

their fluttering so often turns to rut.
When sparrows mount, they chirrup squeak and trill
in small hot ecstasies that rise until
they satiate. Sometimes she cracks a nut

crooking her smallest finger – feeds the meat
to favourite birds that come at her command
and peck it from the hollow of her hand.
She quivers from the light weight of their feet

As sensual as they but far more strong.
They trust her, eat, continue with their song.

Aphrodite Pieta

It did not matter who had sent the boar.
There was no vengeance in her. Only tears
fall where a tentative red bud appears
drops of his blood turned flower. Nothing more

not even wailing. Silence. In her lap
he lay. Fierce tusks had torn the youth. A shred
of gut nearby at random. He was dead
before she heard him scream. And yet the sap

still rises in the cedars, and the corn
that died as seed is growing in the fields.
She knows as goddess the next harvest's yields
will fill the granaries. He'll be reborn

The streams of Lebanon in springtime flood
bring fields fertile red soil. Adonis' blood.