Equinox

The Seattle post . . .

The Power of Sympathy
— from Persephone
by David Keith Johnson

The low sun was a beneficial hand
That stretched above the lane I walked forlorn,
When I saw at a distance on the land,
Ceres wand’ring the field of broken corn;

Her eyes were downcast — with an aimless pace
She stumbled, weary, on the shattered rows;
The air, so clear and still, mirrored her face —
Spent as her eyes, dumbfounded with her woes;

The world was amber, amber as her grief,
And amber was my own heart loitering there;
I’d lost my loved one, too — and no relief,
No tears, nor songs, nor muttering of prayer
Could succor me, my heart was so undone —
   Til I saw Ceres in the Autumn sun.

The London riposte . . .

Persephone of Passionate Dust
by Kenneth Durham Smith
—after George MacKay Brown

You drag your cloak of ash
through the undying puddles
fed by your mother’s tears
 
A land of wrinkled darkness,
the leftover Kingdom,
you the captive bride

Wearing combs of bone and gold
you walk with pilgrim feet
the roads of a deathless land

And you are so beautiful,
especially in a land always waiting
for something to happen