There was a curious comfort
in the consciousness that she was
back in the underworld
back in the cauldron
the chrysalis
for she’d been there before
and knew its darkness well
no longer frightening or painful
but familiar
the ways well-trodden and
full of memory
just like home
 |
| Detail of Proserpine by Dante Gabriel Rossetti |
i like this! her story is very intriguing, both the overall themes and the individual characters... i remember reading the story as a young girl, probably in some sanitised children's mythology book, and thinking that poor persephone got a rather bad deal. not only abducted and forced to marry her abductor, but required even after her mother found her to stay so many months in the land of the dead, although she had done nothing wrong, only eaten a few pomegranate sees. later, as an adult with plenty of comparative mythology and folklore studies onboard, i could see it differently. still, i was always happy to discover variants in which she chose to go into the underworld. and we all need our germination times, our quiet times. for healing, for inspiration, for simple rest. your persephone seems to have learnt that, wisely.
ReplyDelete*seeds*, not sees...;)
ReplyDeleteThank you. Of course the poem is really about me, but I recognised the echo of Persephone's story. And as someone commented on Instagram, we are all Persephone now. Clearly the idea resonates with people in these strange times.
ReplyDelete