Persephone Pays A Visit

Everything is a'bloom in my neck of the woods, making it so easy to remember the Goddess, to see her everywhere.

I, for one, am grateful for that.

I have a friend named Jo. She has a house that has a yard, and that yard has a tree.

Not just any tree. This is a tree that, against all odds and actuarial tables, has already seen a century go by.

But still . . . like the goddess Persephone, this tree manages to come back each spring to lift our spirits even though she long ago discarded the innocence of youth.

 
   

Spring Rites

  by Jo Carson

   The crabapple in the backyard
has given up blossoms to spring rain
like a girl might shed a prom dress
to put on jeans for the party after.
Green, of course. Fashion
will be honored even in old trees.

 

 

 

   To be able to show out like that . . .
the whole of the backyard
has been abuzz for a solid week.
But now the dress is at her feet;
the ground looks like bloody snow.

The dress was pink, yes pink,
but not some sweet pastel.
She is much too old for the
''wouldn't-an-ornamental-be-nice'
shade of nursery tree polite pink.
She wears a fierce electric fuchsia
with red-headed woodpeckers
and yellow-bellied sap suckers
playing jewels over her limbs.

Ostentatious is hardly the word.

I do not know what is going on.
I am not so young or green myself.
I am pink, in fact, but lacking sap-suckers
and all that buzzing is far more
than benign conversation.
There is nothing polite about it.
She had a thousand or more callers
with something very satisfactory
wide open to each one of them,
and all this in the light of day.

I saw it.

And who knows what went on
at night out in my backyard?

Now she, too, is evidently satisfied.
The dress is shed and the old business
of being fruitful is underway again.
 
Spring Rites was first published in the Appalachian Journal, Vol. 32, No. 3, and is used here with the permission of the author.  Jo Carson, poet, storyteller, award-winning playwright and friend, is the author of several books, Spider Speculations
 

The Goddess Persephone's Return

Persephone, the goddess of the Underworld, leaves her subterranean home each year, returning to earth as the goddess of Springtime to bring us the gift of verdant life and the promise of renewal in our lives.  (You can use this link to read the myths of Persephone.)

 

In closing, a reminder to . . .

Look for the Goddess everywhere,

     You can find her presence all around you.
 
Sharon

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