An Answer to the Goddess

(With quotes from the Epic of Gilgamish)

Why did we leave thee?
Oh lover and mother?

Which lover did thou lovest forever
Of those who shepherded thee,
which continued to please?

For Tammuz, who loved thee in youth
Thou has ordained wailing
every year

When thou lovest the dappled shepherd bird,
Thou smote him, shattering
his wing.
Now in the groves he sits,
crying for his wing

Then thou lovest the lion
Known for his strength,
Yet seven and seventy pits
thou didst dig for him,

When a penalty was decreed
for thy vanity in assaulting heaven and hell to make them thine
Who paid?

Not thee, for thou art not
the shepherd;
thou art not Tammuz;
thou art not the shepherd bird;
thou art not the lion.

When thou went down and they unrobed thee,
saying "This is the manner of things in the Underworld"
Thou disrobed of power.

You walked into the pit;
You were hung upon the wall;
You lamented your own pride;
You escaped alone,
selling each of us as the price.

Thus you regained your power,
saying "This will be the manner of things in the world"
Sorrow and weakness for all others forever.

But our God
He is the shepherd; husband
He marks the fall of every sparrow;
His Son healed the lion;
and sold himself for each of us.

Do you wonder that we left you
after you left us?

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