Persephone to Hades
I have paced your gardens
repeatedly
willing them alive then
wilting alongside them
as you celebrate and hold their death
in your dark, gnarled hands.
Eat this grain I offered
and you took my life,
abducting me from the
garden of youth.
There is only borrowed time
as ransom for even our
immortal lives that cycle
through the seasons for all eternity.
Fierceness I have known since my mother’s womb,
the languishing life stones
bringing bread to all mouths —
I am grateful for that.
And she, through love and anger so terrible
would have destroyed the
world for her daughter.
I have eaten the pomegranate seed
then heard the wail of my mother
shuddering through me
as the nectar turned sour on my tongue,
color draining from my hands
I quake every time you, traitor to death,
get your way and recoil
with cooling feet.
You mock me but
I am terrible too, like you —
I will feed your people so full
they will revel in bounty
and a purpose so potent,
that even you will struggle
to take them down.
.
Plantscapes
I.
At the surgeon today, I suggested
arnica for swelling
psyllium husk for fiber
senna to help him pass
tincture of Valerian to sleep
Holy Basil in the morning
I received a blank look for botany and a bill.
His world isn’t plants and I don’t even know how I grew
to know this. I just know
I see shoots of purslane in the yard and my mouth waters.
II.
Not yet bloomed, they are still tender, fragile even
on the eyes. Little green pop tarts finding their way north
in the broad strokes of sun.
I want to but cannot blame the rabbits who are
planning an invasion. Everything greening. Everything for claiming.
III.
Once I met a swami
who held his hand to my heart, felt it unfence,
held it in front of my stomach, felt it hollow,
held it to my eyes, saw them seal.
We named it: Grief.
He said,
Take it to a tree in the forest,
hug it as you scream out
and it will take it away.
I did as told finding an ancient oak
a garbled body larger than my arms could circle,
it’s leaves holding steady with my bleating,
It’s xylem as my blood, its rented root system
nourishing upward.
.
Rebecca Surmont lives in Minnesota which invites exploration of the seasons and cycles of life that is often expressed in her work. She has a secret love of trains, corn fields, and tiny things. Her written work has been featured in Eunoia Review, Common Ground Review, Crowstep Poetry Journal, Ekphrastic Review, Tiny Seed Literary Journal, Trouvaille Review, and the anthology, Seasons, by Trolley Car Press, among others.
.
Stone Poetry Quarterly 