I recently wrote a poem, Ashes to Ashes.  Little did I know what was to come from my somewhat simple but, at the time, heartfelt poetic expression.  Another poet and published author, Colette-Hope Marks liked the poem and found my reference to the laughing of the Gods inspiring enough to write a response.  Her poem challenges the Gods in their presumption to laugh at us mortals.  I have included here a reprint of my original poem as well as her inspired and beautiful response to it.

Ashes to Ashes

2009

How long in a lifetime does it take
To learn the lessons of love?
Must one carry to the grave
The struggle to get it right?

Why have I had it so often wrong?
How many times have I made the gods laugh
At my insistence that true love
Will be eternally lasting
No matter it’s manifestation or outcome?

It truly seems the gods have cause
To enjoy such riotous mirth.
They know the joke is on me.

They’ve known all along
That what I’ve denied and piously preached
Has never been a Truth.
Love is not impervious
Love does not endure neglect.

Love can certainly die.

Copyright 2009 A. Jill Gaebel

The poetic response to Ashes to Ashes by Colette-Hope Marks:

Athena visited The Parthenon today.

The structure
lingering through time
like the smell of too much perfume
on a woman that long ago left the room
had waited
ravaged
by sea and consequence
surviving
as Athena’s stones of wisdom
above ideals of love.

The Huntress returned for she heard a cry today
that even Aphrodite
too absorbed with infatuation
would not attend to
as though
solidifying the human’s question
“How many times have I made the Gods laugh?” *

“Oh Parthenon, Oh Parthenon
the mist and tears upon these floors
does nothing
save the wisdom they earn.
The Gods should not laugh
for even with strength a mere human hand cannot touch
Aphrodite scorns Hephaestus
after having lay comfortably with Adonis
Hermes performs swift trickery
Hera’s jealousy marks Zeus
by tormenting Hercules
above all of these
truly the tragedy of Paris and Helen remains.
Oh Troy, beautiful Troy…

Parthenon My Parthenon
Our lives are merely restored to books
lining old shelves
never read
stone still
like the statues that We are.
Thoughts of the Gods are all but gone
like forgotten cans of food in the back of the cupboard
but still good fare in time of need.
No….
the Gods should not laugh
because We know
even in the scarlet haze of summer
had a winter’s tsunami not bid Romeo to fall
surviving instead on the Apothecary’s antidote
…and if Juliet
beloved Maiden to us all
had heard a heart beating
pounding
shouting life
sparing her
would they know the story
would they be compelled to read
or dramatize this human tragedy?

I dare say…
not.
For the Gods know
and love itself knows
it must be tragic
it must be tragic
love must be tragic

for the story, the impression
or its poem to remain.”

Copyright 2009 Colette Hope Marks
* From Ashes to Ashes by A JIll Gaebel