Persephone and Demeter

Come close to me, dear
Round nightglow goddess, whisper
Your daughter’s promise of green

Blue-grey giantess
Your seasonal lover nears
Let’s share sighs for known secrets

Today my offering is in the form of a sedoka, which is a pair of katauta love poems. The first one is from the earth to the moon, and the second one is from the moon to the earth.  It also parallel’s the story of Persephone being allowed to return from Hades in the Spring, after her mother, Demeter, turned the world cold and grey at her absence.

The Katauta is an unrhymed japanese form consisting of 17 or 19 syllables. The poem is a three-lined poem the following syllable counts: 5/7/5 or 5/7/7.

The Katauta form was used for poems addressed to a lover. A single katauta is considered incomplete or a half-poem, however, a pair of katautas using…