Natasha Gauthier – The Recipe for Greek Fire

the temples remember it

watching

the resinous combustion

tree to torching tree

Acteon parts the heat

dodging embers

three small owls

perched in his antlers

wailing ἐλελεῦ

the oracles are silent

fled to the coast

Zeus falls roasted

out of a sandstone sky

the last moirologists

cremated

only their lament remains

for your mother and mine

two olive trees

growing out of an ash-heap

Natasha Gauthier is a journalist and classical music critic from Montreal, Canada. She moved to Wales in 2022 and holds an MA in Political Communication from Cardiff University. Her poems have appeared in Poetry Wales, Dreich, Fenland Poetry Journal and Haiku Avenue. She runs the popular Tiger Bay Poetry series in Cardiff Bay, where she lives.

Photograph: progress by Lisa Wright

Lisa Wright is a freelance writer, book reviewer, and amateur photographer. Her work has been featured in Peatsmoke Journal, mixed mag, unstamatic, Lavender Bones, Atlantic Northeast, and Cool Beans Lit, among others. In her spare time, she enjoys baseball (go Phils!), U.K. dramas, mysteries, and panel shows, cooking, baking, and exploring the great outdoors with her partner, John.