PERSEPHONE

She usually calls for me in winter,
But this year, I did not hear
Until the earth was in bud.
It seemed strange
To turn toward that dark stare
To go down
When life was already celebrating
A return. But when the Dark Goddess demands a descent
You must go.
You must go down
To open more, pried open in your most closed places.
To let the darkness that lives there
Spill out onto the floor at your feet
Like blood,
And you must grieve
The loss of the hurt
You held so dear,
Before you can join the flowers.

Marilyn Owen
4/20/02

copyright M. Owen

PERSEPHONE'S FEAST

When all the names are gone
when there is nothing left
for memory to feed upon

Perhaps all the wastes
of love and time
ferment their healing, here
in these nigrado depths,
becoming at last albedo, the medicine.

There is no valor in this rooting
among decomposing fragments
of so many lives.

I offer now bread, red fruit, red wine to Life

To the inarticulate, lost, hungry,
and fallen, to every transparent lover
wandering these gray bardos
in their solitude

Come to the table, all.
Here is a rich conversation
harvested from the last living garden.
A dappled pear, an apple, a pomegranate.
A butterfly in its chrysalis, winged, moist,

the slow rebirth of color
deep in the depths of this dream

The wheat has new life in it yet

The blessing will still be given

Lauren Raine, 2005