Anthemoessa, a sea-drop meadow, femme fatales in flowers yellow.
Daughters of the Earth, Children of the Sea, companions to young Persephone.
Yet Hades stole Youth, with hands of Death, and so the Daughters of Earth had met,
a malicious fate that eons told.
Of Sirens with their
black
wings
cold.

***
Before the Graces Had Fallen
“Come along, subjects, follow my lead!” sang our maiden, the doe-eyed girl of flowers and a polished beauty of new beginnings. With a flick of her wrist the vegetation that creeps upon the ground curled up in delight and turned a pale jade once more. She laughed amongst the petunias, peonies, poppies, petals falling with every step.
“Persephone, Persephone,” the meadow whispered. “Persephone, Persephone.”
She was powerful, regal in stature, queenly, ready to ascend to her mother’s throne. Her impatient smile was radiant, her golden gaze, her sunlit glow that lifted the leaves from their back-bending bows.
“Mortals of Earth, watch as I take my place as ruler of the Harvest!” The girl twittered as she swayed between the mastic trees. We smiled without complaint, twirling the buds in our hair.
We were her companions, handmaidens, guardians. Daughters of the Earth. Us three, Parthenope, Ligeia, and I.
Fathered by a river god, mothered by the soil, nurtured by the Muses of Song and Tragedy. We sang to our lady of the Spring, as she rested on her hammock of vitality:
A green fruit gets ripe slowly,
On the tree that now lays barren
Yet the Youth is now in season
For prosperous lifelong Reason
Bring back our blossoms from Charon!
Oh, bring back our Youth from Charon…
I was the rhythm, the spine that held our voices high, the beat and sway of the trees and the wind and the waves upon the shore. Ligeia was the melody, a balance of dramatic tension and a weightless calm, consequent and antecedent. Finally, Parthenope was the harmony: the singer of relationships, of the mechanisms of working together, of the near mortality of Song.
We were not meant to be prophets. Our song was not meant to hasten fate.
On this island, surrounded by sea, we were safe from the prying eyes of mortals and of Mt. Olympus alike. Safe to protect the Maiden Goddess.
But not safe from everyone, oh no. Youth leads to Death, and misery certainly loves company.
We were there when she was taken. It’s often we get left out of the tale; It was so quick we barely heard the island sigh. For the God of the Underworld is no fool: he came and went, as quick as a flame, as petrifying as his namesake. As alone as a shadow.
When the chariot of death surfaced, when Hades, lonely and
desperate enough to swallow springtime whole, stole away with the girl of flowers, her mother was broken. Death reigned over the land, as the golden wheat of Demeter’s happiness was devoured by hopelessness. Hades’ realm had the earth in it’s clasp, yet he of course was too preoccupied to notice.
Our meadow wilted under the weight of the befallen: little shrines of weeds took hold of where Persephone used to sleep, stand, dream in endless exuberance. We all felt the weight of the world: Atlas could not hold our shame. It took Demeter’s flaxen tears to shake us from where we stood.
“Daughters of the Earth, heed my plea, find my daughter Persephone!”
Hearts in hand, we fled with the tragedy we knew all too well
We were given wings to search for her child, endlessly, tirelessly across the earth and sea, yet
the Underworld was the one place our winged flight could not breach. Our tears splashed into Poseidon’s plane as we craned our necks to seek our lost beauty. We sang into the day, into the black realm of Night.
Come back to us, our Goddess of New
Crawling mountains green and skies of blue
We beg of thee, quit our chase in vain
Lest we suffer Demeter’s wrath, never quell our pain
We sailed across the skies and seas, days and nights. A war broke out in mortal times, a human woman was said to rival the beauty of the Divine. All of the Goddesses of Beauty and Grace took part in this distraction of mankind. Yet we only searched for the budding girl of sun’s light. But we made the error of arriving without our maiden in pursuit, and so Demeter’s apparition seethed with a desolate aura. A raven black vapor that rivaled the gloom of the very place Persephone now resided.
“You were to be her protectors. Now nothing shall protect you,” were Demeter’s cold words before she vanished in smoke and incense blue. Then there was a burning, and boiling sensation that grew and grew.
Ebony feathers grew out of our spines, searing down our skin. Parthenope screamed, the most sensitive, always the softest
“I gave you wings to seek. Now you shall seek repentance. Wise, like Athena’s owls, yes. But
deadly. Vultures, harpies of seduction of both mind and body. We’ll see who Hades carries off next, ha! You shall do the carrying off now. For the song that once matched the Muses shall not be the harbinger of youth, but sends the message of death. This, I proclaim.”
Parthenope screamed again, for a great pain now seared our minds. Knowledge of past, present, future. She was on the ground, convulsing. Tears sprung up in Ligeia’s eyes, and fell, black, staining the once yellow poppies with a tinge of decay.
“You creatures are fated to live only until mortals who pass by this treacherous isle are able to pass safely. As ruler of Divine Law, I make it so!”
Demeter’s incendiary fury raged on as she babbled, inconsolable tears dripping from her fair eyes. “I will teach you to counter fate. For I am the Nightmare, Giver of Customs, Ruler of Divine Retribution.”
She vanished in a cold flare, leaving us to weep tears of death on our once blossoming oasis.