Omega-rich
seeds, in their natural state.
Seeds,
hulled and roasted.
Chilli-hot
seeds. Seeds, honey-sweet.
Seeds
rich in zinc to boost virility;
seeds
which make women fat with child.
Seeds
that sow life, bring children.
Seeds
that sow hate,
spread
their poison quickly or slowly.
Seeds
that sow love,
bound
another to another, like Prometheus to his rock.
A song
to the seeds of the melon,
and to
a single seed of the pomegranate.
A poem
to a noble Han lady,
and to
Persephone, with the slender ankles.
And to
her mother, the lovely-crowned Demeter, also.
A hymn
to the kingdom beneath the ground,
where
dark-haired Hades presides.
Sing,
Muse, of these, in a clear voice,
sing of
these two: a lady and a goddess, who are tethered to that realm,
the
realm of dusk and darkness.
Xin
Zhui, the wife to the son of Emperor Huidi,
was
brought there wrapped in layers,
twenty
layers of shrouds and cloth.
Persephone,
daughter of Zeus and Demeter, as she gathered flowers,
was
seized by Aidoneus, the lord of the dead,
and
carried there on his horses.
The
shrouded lady, wife of the Marquis of Dai,
was
laid in a lacquered coffin,
and
placed inside the chamber of a tomb.
The
girl, still calling for her mother, daughter of Rhea,
was
wedded to Hades, Zeus' own brother,
and as
his wife ruled and received many, in the gloom.
Neither
thought they would ever return to the land of light,
but
both did.
Xin
Zhui, so carefully preserved, was discovered,
her
internal organs and blood vessels intact,
and her
cause of death thus established:
heart
attack, brought on, it is believed, by eating melon seeds.
Wise
Persephone, mourned for by her mother, venerable Demeter,
was
released on the commands of far-seeing Zeus,
but
alas, dark-haired Hades gave her to eat a seed of the pomegranate,
so that
for one third of the circling year
she
must again go down to the kingdom beneath the ground.
Picture credit: Pluto and Persephone, Edmund Dulac (source: WikiArt).
This post was penned in 2019.
