Of course the old gods arenāt deadā¦
Zeus has heard the call many times in his divine life.Ā
Immortality is tiresome and days stretch far beyond comprehension.
How can he die however, when there is no justice to this world.Ā
Put forth many trials and passed enough sentences to qualify him for retirement.
But there are those elude him, those that keep him awake.Ā
Rapists and murderers, war criminals under the guise of politicians and humanitarians.Ā
Supposed to die when his children cry for him each night?
The rest she needs even death cannot give her.Ā
Hera refuses to close her eyes when there are so many families apart and caged.Ā
Queen Goddess will not have this.Ā
She refuses to die until there are no children crying.
Hera has the rage of a mother in her heart,
But what use is it if she cannot save every child.Ā
She will come for every child even if itās to hold them as they die.Ā
To let them know the warmth of a mother for one last time.Ā
Poseidon is raging like a disaster waiting to happen.Ā
He has been restless ever since the slave ships.Ā
No rest for him when his land has been made a graveyard.
He tried so hard not to drown them, to guide them ashore but there was nothingā¦
Poseidonās been raging ever since then.Ā
Helplessness is poison to gods and some days he wishes he could drown them all.Ā
And some days he wishes he was the one that was drowning.Ā
He knows there are no more slave shipsĀ
But things havenāt gotten much better sinceā¦Ā
There are still children drowning in him.Ā
Demeter protects the sacred law but knows nothing is sacred anymore.Ā
Her lands have become mass graves.Ā
She carries children within herself.Ā
Growing flowers where they have died had never been enough.Ā
She yearns to harvest the heads of the murderers.Ā
They are out of her reachā¦
Loved by the public, adored and adornedā¦
So she shakes the earth in the hopes that theyāll fall loose.Ā
How is she supposed to die when she is made to another graveyard.Ā
For Athena death was never an option.Ā
She is a woman of war and she knows she can not die.Ā
It is not hubris to know she will survive.Ā
Look at her eyes, her bronze skin impenetrable by the guns of mere mortals.Ā
Of course Athena can not die.Ā
Deathless as she might be she has never been to abandon.Ā
Each night at the camps.Ā
Her shield, her sword, and her mindā¦
Even she can not find a way out.Ā
Many poems end in sorrow but Apollo knows this will not be one.Ā
He sings lullabies to children and war songs to the protestors.Ā
He has seen it all but never this.Ā
Perhaps the fates refused to show him,Ā
Knowing it would drive him mad.Ā
Each night he closes his eyes, a song dies on his lips.Ā
A whisper of hope in his mind.Ā
As seasons change and the wheels of fate turn, this too shallā¦
He is a man of healing though,Ā
And he knows it will be years before the world heals.Ā
He sees the nightmares of each children.Ā
He feels them shiver in the cold, no blanket on sight.Ā
Cure for the cold given to them long ago but there is no cure for a lack of heart.Ā
Children were not fated to die and neither were gods.Ā
So Apollo lives as does the gods.Ā
Goddess of the hunt has not know rest for a while.Ā
There are those who call themselves hunters at the borders.Ā
She will not let them hunt people for pleasure under the guise of protection.
Artemis is she who protects,Ā she who hunts.Ā
Her name wonāt be sullied by the likes of him.Ā
Mankind shall not make her into an excuse to act out their sickness.Ā
Artemis makes sure their bullets strays.Ā
She makes sure they drink way too much and pass out on the way to their sick hunt.Ā
Goddess of the hunt is after them and eventually she will catch up to them all.Ā
No one knows war as intimately as Ares does.Ā
He has seen the aftermath of wars.Ā
He has comforted mothers, and widows, and orphans.Ā
No one is attuned to the heartbeat of a scared child as he.Ā
He has carried bombs on his shoulders.Ā
His arms has held terrible things.Ā
His heart has acted out bloodshed as easily as a kiss.Ā
There once was a time war made sense to them all.Ā
Some honour to be found.Ā
Nothing made sense anymore.Ā
Nothing but the victims.Ā
So those are the ones he fights for.Ā
He rebels with them against those that would subdue them.Ā
He rages with the might of a war god, his voice now belongs to children.Ā
Children who are angry enough to go in front of the congress.Ā
Children angry at the world that is trying to kill them.Ā
Children on tv begging not to be shot.Ā
His sword belongs to them now.Ā
As tired as he might be of war, he loves his children and he will not die until they all get to live.Ā
People forget Aphrodite is a war goddess too.
They forget she has taken war as her lover, that she has bore him childrenā¦
Everyone thinks that Aphrodite loves all with no conditions attached
But she cannot love all, she cannot welcome all.Ā
She cannot claim to love the children while embracing their killers.Ā
However she is ready to heal with her love when called upon.Ā
This is not the first time love has changed actions and she hopesā¦
She goes to the children at night.
She talks to the little girls who are no longer littleā¦
She does her best to save them
They are too young to be mothers after all.Ā
Love is a goddess that shall never die.Ā
Hephaestus once forged the best weapons of war
Now he forges a path free of fire so that children can escape.Ā
He knows the pain of being discarded,
He refuses to sit and watch as the same happens.Ā
The fire inside of him belongs to a god.Ā
It is infinitely stronger than those that would snuff out lives.Ā
He forges weapons for her warrior siblings
He forges shields for all the children his eyes can see.Ā
He is the fire underneath the earth waiting for a chance to burn them all to the groundā¦Ā
Hermes knows nothing of diplomacy anymore.Ā
Borders are lines with the dead.
He carries the cries of mothers to Zeus, and he too begs for some form of justice.Ā
He plays pranks for the children to draw out a smile from them.Ā
He brings down compounds to the heads of their would be killers.Ā
He carries messages of hope from one rebellion to the other.Ā
Children may be small but they are more resilient than gods some days.Ā
He has always loved humans far too much.Ā
He was a child himself not long ago,Ā one of the youngest in Olympus.Ā
Hermes guides the refugees at night,Ā
Makes sure their paths are safe to cross.Ā
He tells stories to children at night.
Each of them are too afraid to close their eyes.Ā
Even gods cannot bring them comfort tonightā¦Ā
Hades has seen his share of disasters, mass groups arriving at the gates but thisā¦
Children lined up in front of him waiting.Ā
He cries each night in Persephoneās arms.Ā
He knows death and it does not suit the tiny bodies of children.Ā
Beings full of joy and life, yet in front of him they seem ever so small.Ā
Persephone is furious, but she cannot give in to it.Ā
She has many children to care now.Ā
She will not let them see her cry, she will not remind them of pain nor sorrow.Ā
Persephone brings spring to the hearts of the children.Ā
Hades welcomes them to his arms.Ā
He had always been impartial, his domain demanded it so but no longer.Ā
Hades loves his children.Ā
He would defy the laws if he could.Ā
He would close the gates if he had the power.Ā
King and Queen eternal with their eternally young children.Ā
Neither gods nor the children.Ā
