Winter Solstice: Persephone's Return - Fran Holland-Claggett

[Larry Robinson]

Winter Solstice: Persephone's Return

I stand at my kitchen window
in the silence of the still sleeping
house and watch the sun
scatter eucalyptus light into leaves,
peel red strips of sky from
smoothed trunks.
Naked in the morning.

Gathering up the shards of light,
I arrange them into day, work, 
and they emerge
into sudden brilliance.
Jays flash blue glints.
The sun warms my back.

The winter garden grows green,
all leaves. A single turnip
purples the earth where I dig
into clumped earth, press clay,
mold the vessel that gathers the rain.
The birds drink from the earthen moon.

Evening, I hold the water-colored
sky bowl in my hands, descend
as daughter of the earth, and dream, 
as the moon rises, tipping
the bowl, awakening to each return
of the day with crimson lips,
pomegranate seeds 
still on my tongue. 
When it grows light, 
I will plant them.

	- Fran Holland-Claggett