PERSEPHONE

What a work memory is – fecund,

abeyant, arcane!  How apparently

dormant, inconsequential images

awaken, seemingly unbidden!

 

I am fifteen, climbing the steep steps,

two at a time, from the Underground

to the street –  on a sunlit, London

October morning. I look up. Beginning

to descend, carefully, from the gentle light,

is a young woman,  heavily pregnant.

 

She has become a persistent stranger,

replete with promise – unrealised,

as yet and forever.

 

 

 

 


 

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5 Comments
  • Laurie Corzett
    November 9, 2012

    Approaching Winter

    Twinkling lights. I remember twinkling,
    clouds resplendent awaiting snowfall.
    It’s Persephone’s time below,
    growing in power, regality.
    Friend to post-living souls,
    hearing their stories,
    sharing her own,
    from the above time.

    Flitting about,
    we sing seasonal phrases,
    sweat anxiously in crowded malls
    over inner demands for a never
    remembered perfection.
    Children standing in awe below
    magnificence of glowing giant trees.
    Cities return to primal forest
    for an imaginary season.
    Telling ourselves our stories that
    Santa might find us worthy
    of that shiny plaything that will
    make us all right, make us happy.
    Happy little children, so Mama
    and Papa might be proud,
    stop fighting,
    tell us happy children stories,
    take us back to the Garden.

    Deep below, Persephone combs
    her silken hair, long tangly
    root
    core
    essence.
    Magical petals of bliss and succulent aroma
    lightly fall within the Garden walls.
    The flowers are sleeping, blanketed in
    millennial layers,
    reverberations of stories,
    plotlines thick with forest lore.
    Snowflakes twinkle, lightly falling
    drape long-growing trees
    peacefully awaiting their Queen.

  • Ashen
    September 15, 2013

    The descent, incubation

    … replete with promise – unrealised,

    as yet and forever …

    Great capture of a process.

  • KittyB78
    September 15, 2013

    Thanks for sharing your pretty poem with us. 🙂

  • Cathy
    September 15, 2013

    Very good interpretation of Persephone and the Underworld. Interesting read.