Elemental
If you
are the meadow,
I am
the torrential rain that washed
rabbit
kits from their dens and stopped
the
blanketflower in its seed.
If you
are the West Wind,
I am
the carrion bird’s triumphal caw,
the
dissonant chimes undermining
your
song.
If you
are the autumn fires,
I am
the impatient hoarfrost,
the
diminishing days.
If you
are the koi pond,
I am
the false sun of a heron’s eye,
golden
and insidious,
the
stabbing beak.
If you
are the Spirit,
I am
the bloody hand beckoning
you
back to me.
The theory that the world is composed of 4 elements (fire, air, water, and earth) was formalized by poet/philosopher Empedokles in the 5th century BCE. He called them "roots" (Platon, in "Timaeus," was the 1st to identify them as elements, in ca. 360 BCE) and also identified them with Zeus, Hera, Nestis, and Aidoneus. (Zeus was the Greek sky and thunder god; his sister/wife Hera was the goddess of women, marriage, family, and childbirth; Nestis was a euphemistic cult title for vegetation goddess Persephone, since the use of her name was taboo because of her role as the queen of the dead; likewise, Aidoneus ["The Unseen Lord"] was an epithet for Persephone's husband Hades, the king of the underworld.) He also proposed that love combined the 4 roots , and strife separated them, to form the entire structure of the cosmos.
ReplyDeleteSimilar notions existed elsewhere, though Hindu traditions added "akash" (void or space).