Leda And The Swan Poem by STANLEY PACION

Legend holds that Zeus was a rake.
He had this thing for beautiful earth women,
And he had a bag full of tricks.
He would use any ploy,
Anything to satisfy his desire for sex.

The god wanted Leda,
He wanted her real bad.

Yet when he became swan,
(The guise he adopted for this one, particular encounter)
The landscape of his attire, the white,
It blinded him, and for the moment,
The god stopped, he had to orient himself.

And she, she knew what was in store.
Had not the oracle promised?
Her community knew her face and body were extraordinary.
I want to tell you, Leda luxuriated in her loveliness.

No question about it!
She had prefigured the experience.
She had always sought a role in history.

Her vanity, big time,
She lived in era before Acknowledgment,
She had no idea, the seven deadly sins.

Then suddenly the swan returned to his purpose.

He lowered his neck.
He ran his head right through her inviting arms
- No resistance there - and his bill,
After it kissed her breast,
It easily reached underneath her hair
All the way around the back side of her head.
Then he tugged at her lobe;
He whispered into the drum of her ear.

His wings encased both her arms to the shoulders.

Once he entered her,
When he released himself,
He recognized how delightful the feel of his feathers,
His enchantment invigorated his abandon.
Verily had he become swan at the very depth of his loins.

Later, upon her return to the village,
Leda prostrated herself before the shrine of Eros.
She thanked the golden-winged god for his steady aim,
And then made sure to praise the power of the potion,
Which now had brought a god to herhis knees
In which he dipped his arrow-heads.
For it had brought the King of the gods to his knees.

As she staggered to her feet,
She threw some coins at the stone upon the altar.

Everyone saw her wanton disarray,
And heard her boast that she had become pregnant.
Such flush was upon her cheeks that
She seemed afire with divinity.
She announced to all, and wildly ran
To anyone who appeared to listen, screaming

'My baby's name is Helen! '

With eyes wide open she saw the Greeks,
The heroes at war before the gates of Troy.
She saw the girl atop the city's walls,
Looking down upon the assembled ranks.

Within the certainty of her vision she watched
Her daugther straining upon the tip of her toes
Searching the colors and the faces of the army below,
Hoping for sight of her two brothers.

And at the moment Leda envisioned
The whiteness of the maiden's hands,
That her knees were slender
And that the beauty of her face matched her mother's

Leda knew her immortality,
That she and her daughter had become legend.