Seasonale

These verses, composed in alexandrine (hexameter), are inspired by the ancient story of the harvest-goddess Demeter mourning the loss of her daughter. The maiden Persephone was abducted to the underworld and forced to marry Hades, the king of that realm. Demeter’s grief—and her anger, when she discovers that Zeus brokered the deal—casts the world into eternal winter until Zeus repents and convinces Hades to return Persephone to her mother for six months of every year.

 You men of endless summer, coddled by the sun
Weaned on honey wine and fed on easy meat
Your hands unworn by work, your brow uncreased by care
Carousing golden days and heedless of the night

Your beauty is the glowing crown of all creation
Your supple strength and nimblness in sport and play
Tireless in amusement, genius in invention
Passion running higher, hotter by the day

What could have made you gentle with the earth you trod?
Who could have taught you mercy to the weaker ones?
Raised on a bargain, cheered for piracy and waste
Pluck the fruit. Take one bite. Toss the rest.

The world was not designed and measured out for taking
Betrayal won’t go unremarked or unavenged
Something calls a halt. Something overturns
Something lights a torch and signals for an end

This is the oldest song was ever sung
To make a bonfire of the human heart
To warn the dreamers in the warmest day
To heed the coming of the winter night

Let the swollen river wane and cease to flow
Let the branches shed their leaves and bend to break
Let the breezes hush their tender lullabies
And raise instead a tunnel-ling spiral-ling howl of rage

Darkness wears a suit of shining iron mail
Muffled in a cloak of velvet shadow spun
Moves on weightless feet across the revel-hall
Slips between the sleepers and their glowing hearth

Glistening ice below
Glittering stars above
Silvering snow around
Echoing silence within

No banner on the walls, no flag atop the arch
A kingdom ruled by drumbeat march and memory
The dance, the trance, the pantomime, the ritual
Down among the spirits, down among the shades

While teasing shadows flicker on the cavern wall--
Do you remember green, do you recall the rain?--
The forest mends its ways against your dragging feet
Oceans sweep the shore, restore their salty deep

This is the oldest story ever told
To make a promise of the human heart
To cheer the sleepers in the frozen night
To wait the coming of the tender spring

Hush, child, listen for the quiet sign
A stirring underground too fine for human ears
A hundred thousand seeds will heed the swelling call
Quicken sap, spur the root, bud the leaf

As with the waving of a mother’s magic wand
Born all anew in beauty, nature pirouettes
Wobbling on young legs
Enchanted to meet you

Froth of blossom overhead
Spangled in pink and white
Delicate, fragrant, sweet
Festival of birdsong

However does it happen, something sprung from nothing?
What peculiar grace have we deserved to win?
Yearly miracle beyond all reach of reason
That such a restoration should occur again

Then with the beat of leaping blood within your veins
Unfurl your eager soul and lift it to the sky
Raise your voice to welcome back the greening season
Reach out your limbs and drink of life again