Hydra

Hydra

In the damp hush of the Hesperides’ groves,
a serpent’s breath would stir the tea‑leaf air,
its heads—crowned with iridescent, cryptic splendour—
spaced by moon‑lit veins of wet clay.

Perseus, with glinting bronze and resolve,
to the Nemean hall with a single thrust.
Yet every cut, each glimmering loss,
seeded fresh by a hidden well of scalding fire.

So the beast displays all that a mind can dread:
the duplicitous gift of renewal—
thin throats, thick veins— a curse that knows no halt.

In modern parlance, Hydra is a law, a brand,
a network of branches that, once severed,
streaks back with doubly calculated vigor.
Like the stew of parasitic plots
in a wartime cabinet, the many‑headed dogma
that refuses to settle.

Yet there is a strange gentility in the unbroken,
each head a promise of chance, of hope,
demanding grief in one hand, rebirth in another.

The Hydra, ancient and still vigilant,
haunts folklore halls and lab benches alike;
a reminder that what we cut rarely dies,
and that in our own echoes we find the work of fate.