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Mortals know not the cause of quarrels between gods. Yet the gods know not of the suffering mortals experience because of it. Perched upon my hill limbs forever frozen in time. Except for when the wind, as it whips through my upper echelons, grants me a reprieve of rustling leaves and a gentle sway. I stay here a remnant of a battle between love and ego, the unwitting victim of Eros’s wrath. He who desired me has long since moved on yet I still stay with him, a symbol of his failure and a symbol of the mercy of Mother Earth.
I am with him still. I am the crown on his head and I rest on the crowns of his champions. I am forever a symbol of victory and remembrance though I myself am oft forgotten. The rich men rest on me when their time has come and those who are victorious laud me for the world to see. Yet still I get no true recognition.
Beauty and youth were fleeting and I sit here my limbs continuing to grow, reaching towards the sunlight, the same blinding light that is the source of my torment. I am everywhere, my presence adorns the heads of emperors and the mouths of oracles and yet, solitude still surrounds me deeper than any embrace.
As my petrified body slowly decays my legacy endures, carved onto the heads of history. Yet, as my frame of wood crumbles I must confess, does true remembrance belong in stone or the intangible whispers of a memory? After all, when you replace the tree bit by bit does any of Daphne remain?
I sit here now, my twisted limbs moving under rushing wind as fast and vicious as the arrows of love. I watch over this land as my wooden heart rots, my stillness the reminder of a bleeding heart that forever burns too bright.
Mortals know not the cause of quarrels between gods, but it is certainly mortals who suffer.