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Persephone Before the Earth Opens and Hades Claims Her as His Own by Suzanne Scarfone
oh, glory goddess
mother
who brought me forth
hurry
bring me my paint pot
to color the flowers
yellow lily stripe here
pink poppy spot there
sweet violet smears
pearl white rose daubs
silver-blue iris
here I skip and here I sprint
all for you mother and
our love-twined whimsy
I am your sugared skin
your flushing girl
your tumbling love
send me to spin and paint
in this always garden where
the sunlit flesh of us breathes
hum mother-love
while I sleep
I am your smiling
rosy-blue
blossom-faced flower
a meadow maid
bathed in myrtle scented water
joy-stung pure
as the earth grown green
with mint
sewn sacred to you
Bio
Influenced by English Romanticism and French Surrealism, Suzanne Scarfone's poems paint the visionary musical moments found in the smallest details of everyday life. She has published widely, produced two music and poetry CDs, composed a song cycle entitled "Wild and Wordless", and co-authored Lessons from Afghanistan: A Curriculum for Exploring Themes of Love and Forgiveness.
Author's note
In this poem, Persephone is an innocent girl living with her mother in an endless garden of color
and scent before she falls into the underworld of Hades and becomes his queen. In these lines,
Persephone, inseparable from Demeter, exists solely as a part of her mother. She is a meadow
maid, a smiling blossom-faced flower. Not yet individuated as a separate self, her sunlit flesh and
innocent whimsy are but an extension of her goddess mother.
