Erebus Revisited
She has gone back into the dark.
Once more her shadowy familiars lurk
claiming her as one of their own.
Ironic that in this February season
when at last the earth stirs,
when daffodils shoot points of hope
she has sunk again into the lifeless zone
where madness stalks.
Last time she emerged from the depth
Belsen-thin, blinking in the light.
She told me later of her thought-blight,
her obsession with the tools of death.
Each kitchen-knife, each pack of pills,
each length of rope. Anything she could use
to make an end. Yet still she'd strength to refuse
those arcing blue convulsive drills.
That and the love of her family saved her,
hauling her back to the holding ground,
to the cave's flower-ringed entrance, the sound
of birdsong, of splashing water.
Together again, Persephone, Demeter.