Borrowing a Flower Stall - 1. Borrowing a Flower Stall

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II.

The same day to a week, Hymen waited,

Amid bustling crowds, for his time to come.

But Chronos himself had begun to slow –

At least to the bright boy whose clock started

Only the moment he first laid eyes on

The purest of the pure, his kempt Kathros.

With him, on this sunny market Thursday,

He’d brought a sole ambition in his heart.

So now he stood impatiently shifting

One restless foot beneath him at a time,

His vigilant gaze scouring down the hill

As temple-goers made their way up it.

Inside his head, true love’s nature beckoned

That he upon it ruminate, and know

Although a week already, the sudden

Birth of it in Hymen’s core was like fire;

He’d seen her, and struck by Eros, melted.

‘Are things more noble just the same?’ he mused,

But as so often is the case, not one

Godly answer gave up explanation.

He stood to attention, spotting the maid

A few hundred feet down the shopping street,

And then a second more, there was Kathros.

Hymen put his right-brained scenario

Into its most immediate deploy –

The timing could not have been more perfect,

As the same lad as last week was in charge.

Hymen dashed through the street, into the stall.

The boy, who was perhaps twelve or thirteen,

Pulled himself like a magnet to the gold

Hymen held up to the youth’s eyelevel.

Once drawn in like a catch within a net,

A reassuring hand Hymenaios

Placed upon the young entrepreneur’s neck.

Gently massaging for reassurance,

Hymen bent to whisper in the boy’s ear:

“Lend me your stall, young man, that I might work

For a mere ten minutes’ economy.

You will get the better in the exchange.”

So said, the gold slipped into the open

Clutches of the mercenary young man.

After the coin was bit and tested true,

The lad skipped out in another moment,

Making Hymen the shop’s proprietor.

He walked behind the wreaths and garlands,

And soon the maid came clomping by, clearing

A pathway like the prow of a warship,

In whose wake safely drifted the maiden.

After they had neared, and the nurse gone by –

Gaudy and worldly things distracting her

From up ahead on the loud thoroughfare –

Hymen held out a fine wreath of cypress,

Embroidered all between its lacy fronds

With the palest of wisteria sprigs.

He held it for Kathros, and her alone.

Slowly, the girl by scanning other blooms

Must have found them to be overwhelming,

For the evergreen and soft lilac sprays

Planted a fresh plot in her perspective.

The young man hoped he could lure her closer,

And thought of the irony of the boy

Quick tempted with matters material;

Only with the girl he knew that not coin

But the substance of his spirit drew her

Like a sunflower seed to open blue sky.

His ploy was effective, for Kathros stopped.

Holding the arrangement herself, she asked

Its origin, its quality and price.

Hymen replied, “Wrought by hands too-earthly,

Nonetheless fit tribute for the divine;

It’s worth is yet untested, but its price

Will prove to the tooth its true purity.”

Thus listening, a new cast came to her,

Her eyes seeming to understand his words,

Although her conscious mind could not grasp them.

In boldness then, he dared to touch her hand,

Seeing within her stare, the jolt both felt.

“Take it, dear lady,” Hymenaios said.

“For any goddess that might receive it –

This wreath – from your blessèd fingers, will know

Divine virtue can live in us as well.”

Regrouping herself and looking for Nurse,

But seeing the woman nowhere nearby,

Kathros took the cypress and wisteria,

Imparting a shy smile for the beauty

Of the flower boy giving it her thus.

When she turned and sailed back towards her maid,

Hymen’s heartbeat throbbed close upon his throat,

Feeling Love herself had touched him that day.

He returned the stall to its owner-youth

And stealthily set off amongst the crowd,

Following them up the Acropolis:

Two women who shall bedeck fair Dame Artemis;

Hymen behind to worship his one true Mistress.

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