Reverend Allyson Szabo
They laughed, the lot of them,
As he hobbled from one to the other,
Golden goblets in his able hands.
It took them long years to learn
The strength of his soul.
Yet every taunt, every jape
Was the forge fire that tempered him,
Made him a true god.
Aphrodite’s wanderings into Ares’ bed
Were barely felt,
For he soon found a wife in Algaea,
A wife that embodied beauty and glory.
She cared not that his legs were weak,
Or that he hobbled and used a cane.
She knew the strength of his smithy’s arms,
And the deftness of his tinkering fingers.
They all came to understand, though,
In the fullness of time,
Just what he could do.
Ride an ass though he might,
One blow from his mighty fists
Would kill a man,
Or gravely wound a god.
An ugly god, oh yes he was.
His body misshapen,
His legs but shrunken nubs,
Barely strong enough to hold him upright.
His legs may be flawed,
But his soul was pure,
Proven in the flame of adversity.
neosalexandria 