For Aphrodite Ourania

No image could capture you,
O Ouranic Aphrodite, great queen —
we must fragment our

view to even glimpse a shadow.
How could material capture a beauty
unseen and summited beyond thought,
you who basks in dripping light?

What image could render you
within the chasm-like Hestia
of yourself, completely hidden?
Your chariot’s immense power?
That blazing-bright morning star
dancing through its phases,
or the tender, foaming ocean?
The way the Palinode kindles
love for its bewitching pages,
its locks of words coaxing wonder,
iconed to overflowing with you?

No image — but I know you
deep within myself, knotted
tighter than inborn impressions,
where I am carried by the river
of incense, the flow of sacred words,
to where the boat of my soul finds
steady ground among inner statues.

You are radiant, whole, piercing,
veiled and bare, courageous.
Without fragmentation, intuition
reaches its unsteady fingers to touch
you-who-abides, Ouranic Aphrodite,

and the waterfall of your series
reveals its proceeding wonders.