11:03pm April 20, 2015

Persephone

Six pomegranate seeds
That’s all I ate
But I was foolish
Even the Celts in the northern reaches
Know not to eat fairy food unsalted
But I was a young thing
Oblivious to danger
And now I travel between the worlds
Unwilling ambassador to Hades

Hades treats me right
But if I had my say
I’d have married Artemis
Not a male god
Certainly not the king of a world
Inhabited by shades

But I was raised by Demeter
And her sense of duty to the earth
Is a powerful thing
I inherited her sense of duty
Or had it pounded into me
Not sure which

So I am nice to the shades
And try to find them
Things they might like
To pass eternity
After all if I’d been mortal
I’d be them and not me
Fearing their dark pale queen
Even as they begged me for things

I feel a duty to the marriage bed
Even though I’d rather see
Another goddess there
But goddesses are hard to come by
In the underworld
The ones who pass through
Have foreign names:
Ma'at, Aset, Nebet-Het
Ereshkegel, Mictecacihuatl
And most pass through
Not able to speak my language
Or understand it either
Sometimes they frighten me
As I must frighten them
At any rate, duty prevents affairs
And I am nothing if not dutiful

The shades I try to help the most
Are the living who became so sick
They landed here
Across the river Acheron
And need to find their way
Back to the living
Before they too end up trapped here
They remember it all as delirium

But I know
That just like me
They’ve eaten a pomegranate seed –
Or two or three –
And so they come back, delirious
Time and time again
Wondering why they can’t stay out

I do my best
To make their stay
As painless as possible
And hope against hope
That the seeds
Won’t leave them alienated
When they return
To the overworld
The way I always feel
When returned to my mother
Who I love more than anything
But the seeds, they come between us
Just as they come between all
Underworlders and overworlders
In the end