Day 224: Demeter

Finally, it's the first of February and the prelude to Spring begins! Or, in other terms, Demeter stops her weeping and the earth begins to warm and bloom to her new happiness - her exiled-to-the-underground daughter, Persephone, returning. 

I love this myth as it shows what love can do; how it can transform. Even 'winter and hard earth' can give way to a 'blue sky smiling' and hearts that were hard, broken, frozen, words that were 'granite' and 'flint' can soften in response to love's warming touch. And from there, from here, Spring, February - a new beginning is most certainly possible, with the 'the shy mouth of a new moon.'

Demeter - Carol Ann Duffy

Where I lived – winter and hard earth.
I sat in my cold stone room
choosing tough words, granite, flint,

to break the ice. My broken heart –
I tried that, but it skimmed,
flat, over the frozen lake.

She came from a long, long way,
but I saw her at last, walking,
my daughter, my girl, across the fields,

in bare feet, bringing all spring’s flowers
to her mother’s house. I swear
the air softened and warmed as she moved,

the blue sky smiling, none too soon
with the small shy mouth of a new moon.