Revista Prometeo
ORPHEUS AND PERSEPHONE He couldn’t wait—winter was upon him. Through abyss and tunnel he had to go down to meet her in the seed-dark of the underworld— she in her iceberg aspect, face frosted in a frown,
or so he imagined. He couldn’t wait for spring when she trod the earth again and turned her face towards the sun like a heliotrope. Placental seed would pine for her return and all vegetation which she quickened into life. He hadn’t planned, should he on bended knee ask another lease for his snake-stung wife?
How are the dead retrieved? Retrieve-- was that the word? Ask for her soul, or the rest --limbs, hair, laughter, voice? Give me a hearing Goddess! He thought she hadn’t heard. 2 Halfway through his subterranean voyage he froze. That river was blacker than a starless night, driftwood-river clogged with driftwood-souls, and Charon paddling away—Goddess help! He cried. Is this a river or black despair that I see? There’s such silence here as I never heard. Heard? Is that how silence sinks into your system? What state am I in, floundering around a word? He berates himself (his confidence has vanished) he needs a drink, (there’s none to be had.) Think of her as exile, think of her as banished.
Switch the states, exile and death, think of the soul as émigré. Unsure of himself, he has no one to speak to.
He could talk to his lyre—it would sing as told. 208