The Procession of Pomegranates
Six pomegranate seeds glint in the palm of Persephone, the goddess of Spring,
who descends down the carved stairs farther and farther into the throat of the Underworld.
Her ringed fingers polish the seeds incessantly.
The seeds shine like rubies,
or the eyes of the bats that watch their goddess,
both precious in their own right.
Persephone stares ahead, her jaw clenched, the skirt of her dawn-colored dress tattered from thorns.
Her head is raised.
There is anger festering in her brow, in the taunt muscle that twist like wires under her pale skin, in the tears that flush her cheeks.
Behind the goddess follows six beasts,
Bear,
Frog,
Snake,
Cicada,
Deer,
Bee, each nervous as they descend into death, their eyes fixed on the goddess as she shepherds them.
Persephone thinks of her mother's anger as she polishes the seeds over and over
with her ringed fingers.
Demeter’s screams pierces her mind like lightning,
shocking her with guilt as she looks to her refugees,
their eyes round as they take in the darkness.
She will plant these seeds out of reach from Demeter.
She will not have them pushed under her nails, leashed to her wishes.
They will not be swallowed as the Earth writhes in boiling seas,
quaking mountains, shrinking ice, evaporating woods.
They will be hidden away, planted under the tongue of the world,
until Spring sings, followed by her Procession of Pomegranates.