Mistress Minna’s Comb

Chug-a-chug, chug-a-chug, down the track they go.
On a kind of mission bent.
Lickety-splitly off they went
Some would say they’re heaven sent.
Here is what I know.

Mistress Minna was a nymph, a beauty so they said.
In a tree she kept her comb,
Ancient heirloom made from bone.
One fine morning she intoned,
“Guards, a thief has fled.”

Sure enough the comb was gone; thief fled on the train.
So they followed on the track.
Tried to get the bone comb back.
Gantry singing clicky-clack,
Pumping in the rain.

Tracks were damaged in the storm. 
They caught him.

Seal Up Evil in a Wooden Box

The Robert A. Heinlein memorial award, in wooden box by Unknown maker is licensed under CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0

Pandora breathed in the garden’s verbena scent. She breathed out a spell to quiet the unicorn and summon the dragon, then she rubbed the genie’s lamp. From the ground, she pulled a box so ancient and filled with grievance that it groaned.

It had taken centuries to master herself well enough to undo the past. She was ready, with help from her friends, to reverse the mistakes she’d made as an impetuous youth. The four breathed wishes into the box.

It roiled. Disease, pestilence, greed, slavery, the evils of the world poured in and settled together. Pandora closed the box.

No Longer Waiting

Calypso, Circe, and Griselda waited to begin. They gasped with delight when Penelope arrived without Odysseus, a red and yellow striped hula hoop spinning to the sway of her hips.
It flew up. It centered itself. Now they were ready to roll.

The four joined hands and swirled madly around the hoop. Calypso’s sweet soprano lifted their hearts while Circe cast a spell of impatience that Penelope wove into a new adventure. Griselda simply danced. They spun faster and faster, until the hoop transformed into a Möbius strip. In one smooth move, they disappeared into a chaos of roiling branches.

Earthly Delights

Circe daydreamed under an oak tree that grew on a cliff overlooking the ocean. Her pet pig, Ulysses, dug truffles while she watched the sunset roll in. The truffles smelled woody, fresh, and clean. She felt wise when she nibbled them, almost as if she’d lived on the island for centuries.

She had thought she might live forever, cloistered from humankind. Young, tech rich, cranky, and prone to fits of passionate revenge, solitude suited her until she longed for company. Her TikTok video advertising island paradise dream homes went viral. Ulysses, in a straw hat, held an open house sign.

To Hell and Gone, Revised

Graduation night, Persephone and her girl band rocked out in the high school cafeteria. Glittery sequins covered her jacket like chain mail. She was young, it was spring, life was good.

But spring turned to winter when Persephone quenched her thirst with a fruity punch at intermission. Her head spinning, she stepped outside. That hellhound from the shooting range who was always trying to get into her pants appeared.

Blame it on the punch; she followed him. Her mother, a social influencer, raised the alarm. Millions searched. The gods got involved. When the two returned, her mother gave him hell.

(Apologies, it’s been hard to keep up this week.)

To Hell and Gone

Graduation night, Demeter made punch. Her daughter, Persephone, washed glasses and when they got to the auditorium, she set them out on a table where a senior class picture was displayed. Persephone was in the center of it all because spring was her season.

But spring turned to fall, then winter when Persephone’s boyfriend texted. Was he in on it? When she stepped outside, there was that hellhound from the shooting range who was always trying to get into her pants.

Blame it on the punch; she followed him.

When they returned, her mother sent him to hell and back.

Wishing Spring

Photo by Aleksandar Pasaric on Pexels.com


Until spring comes, Persephone will fill the Styx with tears of longing for her mother.
Caught in the prison of Hades’s grasping power, she mourns.
Caught in the devil of the season, we wish it done.

We cry for hope.
Hope that the dark sky opens. That sunlight shines on puddles and nourishes green shoots of grass. 
Grass like flying carpets.
Take us from this dark country, soar high on a hope and a prayer.

A hope that Persephone and Demeter will be united
in love of Mother Earth. Their garden will bloom again. 
A prayer for spring. For redemption.

Rusalka’s Story

Water coursed through Rusalka, around her slippery body, into her memory. The pagans called her a sweet thing, a beautiful maiden, a boon to forests and fields. Handmaid of Spring, she spread life-giving water to the crops.

Baptismal waters washed away that myth. There was no room for Rusalka in the new religion. She was demoted, maligned, branded a seductress. Some still believed she brought water to the fields as always. They became a minority, old thinking, out of date. God’s people cursed Rusalka. They didn’t deny her existence. They changed her story.

Labyrinth

A locked away monster,
bloody
quiet,
has escaped from the king's central labyrinth.

In the palace drawing room, the cultured crowd,
unaware,
exclaims learnedly regarding a jacket's weave, a jeweled neckline, a nice progression on the piano.

Hoi polloi sneak a peek,
stand in awe, in silence,
until their outside skins harden; turn to pale, plastic cellophane.
They wear tight smiles like lady's spandex girdles.

In voices that strain to be heard
they shriek,
“Let me in; let me be.”

Guards secure
the entrance to the drawing room. Posted on the door: 
Screaming, Crying, Pounding Prohibited.
Inside stand painted silk screens, embroidered room dividers, all crafted at the finest,
most secretive institutions.

Screens to sublimate,
to destroy the mundane and make it sublime,
An industry to craft silk purses from sow's ears.
The sows left bleeding, scatter
pieces of themselves along the path;
find a way away from the maze.

Some Equinox Thoughts

After March 21^st, light outruns dark. Human beings create stories across many cultures to acknowledge, to understand, to make meaning of this phenomenon. When the darkness is finally conquered by the longer days of spring and summer, tales of heroes and villains emerge. Moses and the Pharaoh (Passover), Jesus and Pontius Pilate (Easter.) Krishna and Radha conquer doubts through divine love (Holi) and the forces of good triumph over evil (Nowruz.) Remembering ancestors and preparing to plant come together (Tomb Sweeping Day.)

In September, we’ll prepare for winter decline. For now, be fruitful, make the Earth a better place.

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