Persephone Returns to Find a Pandemic

I have been writing daily (or almost) poems - what I'm calling plague poems, in this time when we are sheltering in place.  Most of them I've not thought much of, but today I thought about the beginning of spring, and Persephone's return.  This is what came. I can't say it's one of the deep and inspiring poems I've been reading on Facebook.  But it's certainly a different perspective!

Persephone returns

and finds her mother

busily commanding the revival

of spring flowers, the blossoms that will

turn to fruit, and the tiny

new green seedling heads,

primed for planting.

But the streets are so quiet,

the air surprisingly clear,

and there is a striking absence

of hustle and bustle.

Below, she had noticed

the large parade of arriving souls,

confused and stunned

by their fate.

But she had

paid that no mind.

There are always reasons

for mobs of souls to appear

in the underworld –

war, famine, floods –

all the disasters.

She looks around now

and sees no injury to

the earth itself.

Demeter looks up and

dusts off her hands.

“Pandemic,” she says

in answer to her daughter’s

wordless query.

Demeter points out her

jasmine, azalea, daffodils, freesia,

the flowering plums and leafed-out

pomegranate trees.

“Beautiful as always, isn’t it?”

She draws her daughter to her

in a welcoming hug.

“It is,” Persephone nods.

“Quiet.  But a little sad.”

“Humans!” Demeter replies,

shaking her head.

“Always getting into

one mess or another.

Maybe this time they

will learn something.”

“What can we do to help them?”

Persephone asks.

“I am helping them!”

her mother retorts.

“I am giving them beauty

and sustenance.

They must do the rest themselves.

They blame us or some other god

for their foibles, and sometimes

our wills do overcome them,

but this is not our doing.”

Shrugging their shoulders,

the two wander off, arm in arm,

to admire the mother’s

handiwork.