Persephone and Hades

I pick flowers one morning in my valley

As I walk on to begin another day.

I have never known any pain,

Under the umbrella of my mother’s love.

Diem perdidi! My days are lost

To rusted metal and screeching wheels;

I shall never know the world again

For I have left my dear Olympus.

You have dragged me far below the Earth

And locked me away with your dead;

You have retaught me the concept of love,

And built for me a dungeon of sheets.

Three years pass; I know the cost of a cat

And in exchange I pay with pain—

Three-fourths of the year, incapacitated!

My days of youth and joy have now died.

Four more years—the brooding season returns.

My belly swells again from you.

By now I beg to be free—

But alas, slapped silent! So I write it down.

You keep me “home,” feeding me books

And a pantry of sour arils;      

I again see light, two-thirds of the year,

But all is not the same.

You claim yourself divinity

And tell me to worship sex;

My girls have become your altar boys

And I, your temple prostitute.

Has the cold heart of Hades become aflame?

Have you finally seen the face of God?

You have now shed your devilish mask

And released me from your shadows.

For eighteen years I forgot the Sun

But in her place found two brilliant lights;

They shall shine on and join the stars

In my long-lost Olympian sky.