[Author’s Note: Originally published in TRIVIA: Voices of Feminism, Issue 6, September 2007, www.triviavoices.net.]
She returns each spring to her mother’s wailing arms,
hair unkempt after months beneath Earth’s layered loam,
where she reigned upon a throne of amethyst and opal.
No underworld combs untangled the want of sunlight from her tresses,
no brushes rid her curls of the endless nights
that denied her the solace of her mother’s fierce eyes.
For weeks after her descent, her dress retained the scent
of September roses,
the metallic fragrance of autumn leaves, of acorns.
But time stole such comforts,
dimming her memory of the place of birds and poppies,
mountains and seas, clouds and laughter.
A sunless realm gathered
the darkness round her, silencing her smile.
Three seeds of ruby pomegranate tamed her tongue.
Three seeds of knowledge call her back to light sky and spring soil.
From beneath Pergusa’s waters she rises,
as waves unlock the gates of winter releasing their Dark Queen.
Persephone’s unruly hair flows loosely in the arms of the wild wind.
Her feral eyes scour the hills as she cries her mother’s name.
From the olive groves, Demeter emerges, waning torch in hand
to kiss her long-lost daughter.
Flowers bloom along her path,
fields thaw in her wake,
rousing life in every dim corner