Proserpina by Susan Hawthorne

Proserpina, Proserpina go home to your mother

—Kate McGarrigle

every mother’s haunting cry

every daughter’s loss

a carefree afternoon

turned bleak because of him

they refuse to speak

about the crime

she’s just a child

wails her poor mother

come home    come home

he has her in thrall

her money in his hands

she tries to please

but she cannot leave

the child seems safe

she likes it here

it’s no longer her call

no food on the bench

come home    come home

he’s in his locked shed

there’s a stench of porn

Prosperpina daughter

won’t come home

mother leave his scorn

his hated shed

mother come home

to me

come home    come home

Wikimedia Commons image

Notes on Propserpina

Last month I heard an interview with Martha Wainwright on Australian radio. The interview included a recording of Martha Wainwright singing the song on Q&A, an Australian TV show in 2013. The song Prosperpina was written by Martha Wainwright’s mother, Kate McGarrigle whose songs I have listened to for decades. It was Kate McGarrigle’s final song.

I was moved not only by the interview, but especially by the song. I have written many poems about Persephone but this song gave me a new perspective in which an unknown figure is calling the child to go home to her mother. I hope you find the song as haunting as I do.

Proserpina is the Latin name for Persephone.


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