I read this one to a number of the other English majors and some of the faculty today during the Academic Chapel, and it was pretty well received, so I thought I’d share it here.

Title Forthcoming. I haven’t decided what to call it. Put some suggestions in the comments.

Like Arachne’s shifting fate,
Some god’s prerogative to sate.
Am I too late

To avoid the anger swiftly
Coming? Fearfully, I run quickly
away, but futilely.

For the god’s winged feet,
For all my struggle still beat
me. In defeat

I cry for benevolence:
Red eyes of flame’s malevolence
scream in violence,

And there I change…
Metamorph’d by god’s rage.
find a cage

Lest this bird take wing
Yellow breasted sweetly sing,
softly, freedom bring.

Malevolence to kindness shifts;
The air my body lifts;
thank the gods for such gifts.

At first his verse
I thought brought curse,
but it could be worse:

Friends give to the god repentance,
for they assum’d death my sentence.
And for me, no remittance,

for black death’s taken o’er
T’was Poetry what spilt the gore;
Poetry, not more.

The god did not kill.
My face he transform’d to bill,
and whenever still

I look upon the earth
Below my wings, I sing with mirth.
‘Round Gaia’s girth

Will I fly,
While friends, not I,
at the god’s hand die.