Persephone Grounded
Persephone Grounded The toad I startle every spring by unearthing her from potting soil, and who startles me by being a toad and not a clod of dirt, is busy licking flying ants out of the air and into her expanding belly, loading up for the long sleep ahead. The day, the air, are unsure about the season but the earth is not, folding back into herself the ferns, the leaves, the black-eyed susans, and eventually the toad, eventually the woman who ate the seeds. We all eat the seeds. Not in innocence, not fatalistically, but in service to the story. Thought helps here, but it’s the sticky tongue, the preparation, the earth itself, that matter. S. Robbins, September 24, 2020 from Readings
Sherry Robbins 