Dearest Mother, Giver of Green and Bloom,

Born of your heart, yet confined in the loom, Of perpetual spring, where maidenhood is assumed, An unquiet longing within me was doomed, Beneath blossoms' bliss, darker desires were entombed.

Veiled in the garland of womanhood, woven of daisies' smile, A hunger unknown was simmering all the while, For a realm where dawn's light does not defile, Hades, the shadow sovereign, offered such a domicile.

His kingdom resonated with my hidden voice, His love, the lone star in an eternal night, by choice, A beacon in the abyss, causing my heart to rejoice, To the underworld I flew, shedding maidenhood's poise.

Adorned in thorny sophistication, with garnet pomegranates as crown, In Hades' fortress, willingly captive, yet no damsel to be downed, The pomegranate's poison, a bittersweet libation, no need to drown, Its symphony a testament of transformation, as a queen, I was gowned.

My domain, a haven not nurtured by solar mirth, But hewn in the heart of shadows, by night's hearth, Beyond spring's transient dances, in the underworld, I found my worth, A queen ascends, ruling her eternal night with mirth.

From the shell of girlhood, a monarch of shadows did emerge, Where once spring's grasp clung, now winter's dirge, The lily's perfume, the nightingale's serenade, in my realm, no longer converge, In their stead, an anthem of power, a symphony of will, resurge.

In Hades' embrace, a love beyond mortal sin, His heart, a mirror reflecting my buried kin, The harp of spring once strummed a gentle din, Now echoes the song of a queen, a powerful violin.

To Hades, I am no longer spring's fleeting dawn, But a goddess, a queen, the muse of his swan song, My throne, not of petals, but of the endless night, In the realm of obscurity, I found my true might.

A captive, a sovereign, a lover, a wife, In Hades' arms, my secret life came rife, The pomegranate seeds, a willing pledge of our eternal life, Not a curse, but a joy, a testament of a wife.

From the tender spring, I chose to decamp, To rule with Hades, in shadows' champ, In the underworld's hold, I am no simple lamp, But a queen, a goddess, ruling in darkness' stamp.

Yours, in both light and shadow's dance, 

Persephone

~S.W