Coustou, statue of Vulcan/Hephaestus (Louvre Museum)
After Callimachus, Aetia, 48
Why did mankind
in dark and cold endure
so many eons without fire?
Fire is no easy
thing.
Rock does not yield it easily,
and zealous Zeus
strikes seldom where a blaze
survives the onslaught
of rain and hail that follow.
There was a time
before bronze, before
the metals coursed
like water in the smithy’s forge.
Once the Olympian father
had the thing in mind,
he had to make a personage
whose job it would be
to lord it over volcanoes,
and be the patron god
of weapons-makers.
Three hundred years it took
on top of Hera, laboring
at the sweaty act of love.
The cosmos shook as though
some vast machinery
of pistons and gears
warred with itself
in gasp and groan,
laughter and love-cry
until we got, full-grown,
and unapologetic for the pain
he caused his mother,
that sour grump god
they call Hephaestus.
