Sep
28
Demeter, Waiting, Rita Dove
I chose this poem today because a) I just wrote and performed my story of Persephone, modernized (see: my previous post) and b) no one really thinks about Demeter and her story. Persephone is the main character there. Someone should ought to explore it more, especially her life before or without Persephone. There was more than the loss.No. Who can bear it. Only someone
who hates herself, who believes
to pull a hand back from a daughter’s cheek
is to put love into her pocket—
like one of those ashen Christian
philosophers, or a war-bound soldier.She is gone again and I will not bear
it. I will drag my grief through a winter
of my own making, refuse
any meadow that recycles itself into
hope. Shit on the cicadas, dry meteor
flash, finicky butterflies. I will wail and thrash
until the whole goddamned golden panorama freezes
over. Then I will sit down to wait for her. Yes.
