Scenes from Hesiod (I): The castration of Uranus and the birth of Aphrodite

The Titans’ War begins with a sickle of stone. Kronos the Reaper grips the blade and claims his father’s power. Galaxies are splintered by the maimed God’s cry. I am severed at the root. My blood, sky-spattered, seeds new worlds. Gaia smiles, dark as birth, and tells her son to cast me down.

I fall from the heavens, through cold fathoms of night. Stars burn and die and are reborn. Still I fall.

A scent shivers in the void. Salt-blue, fin-flicked, pulsing with the moon. I hear her song, I see her face: the sweet sun-dazzled Sea.

Weight is relentless. We collide with a surge that razes cities, drowns islands from Atlas to Tyre. I plunge through the shining sheet, swallowed by her warmth. The heat of molten planets spills from my core. Nebulae unfurl like smoke and swirl amid the spray. 

A storm-swell rises, her colours change: indigo, squid ink, kelp-forest green. Breakers crest and crash. My scarlet ribbons trail and stain the milky foam.

Our daughter rises from the maelstrom, born in blood and brine. Pale as pearl, coral-lipped, a kosmos in her eyes. She will devour mountains; will sink a thousand ships.

I fall again, deeper still, and drift in wine-dark dreams.