Some Thoughts on Turning to Myth: Looking back at “The First Lamentation of Demeter ~ (Poetry and Myth)”

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A Note to My Readers:

Here it is January 2026. My blog has been quiet this year for a number of reasons too long to list.  But the most obvious reason is that of a block or mental ‘resistance’ to writing. Last year in 2024,  I turned to sharing a few older poems of mine that I love. It was a good reminder to me of why I loved writing.

Today, WordPress showed me my latest stats. I rarely look at these anymore, but one thing I notice each time I see an update is that some of the poems I wrote relating to classical myths seem to be accessed the most. I wonder if, in this sad and tumultuous world and country (mine being the USA), we turn to mythology to find answers to timeless questions that appear and reappear over a lifetime. Who are we and why are we here? What is it we are looking for? What really matters? I am now 79.  Those questions and many more have come up time and time again, and the answers have been quite varied over eight decades. What do you, dear reader, think? Why do we cling to myths and tales from long ago and from cultures we know only though history books, literature or art? I’d love to know what you think.

To honor some of these poems, I’m going to post my two Lamentations of Demeter, one at a time. To save some work, I’ll post the whole original poet from my blog. I hope you find some meaning in each of them or perhaps a way to think of something beyond our wild world of today.

 

British Museum GR 1885.3-16.1 (Terracotta C 529), AN34724001

British Museum GR 1885.3-16.1 (Terracotta C 529), AN34724001

 

Here is the original 2014 posting:

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I’ve been looking over my writing notebooks written a while back but unread by anyone other than myself or my husband. The myths of Demeter and her daughter, Persephone, fascinate many including me. For a number of reasons these myths seem to appeal especially to women. Many of the great living women poets have written brilliant poems about Persephone (e.g., Louise Glück and Eavan Boland). The story is timeless.

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In today’s poem I’ve written a Lamentation of Demeter. Demeter, the goddess of the harvest and grains, is often referred to as the mother-goddess since she represents fertility on earth. Her importance is indisputable. When she mourns for her missing daughter, Persephone (who has been abducted by Hades and taken down into the underworld by force) the seasons stop. Things stop growing and the earth begins to die before Persephone’s father, Zeus, intervenes.  You know the story, but it is worth re-reading if you haven’t read any mythology for a while.

Demeter statue in front of my gym in Hillsborough, North Carolina

Demeter statue in front of my gym in Hillsborough, North Carolina

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So what is a lamentation? The Oxford English Dictionary defines it simply: “The passionate expression of grief or sorrow; weeping.” Anyone who has grieved knows instinctively what it is to lament the loss of someone who is dearly loved. The feeling is painful and deep, and I think this resonates within us all. Demeter mourned her daughter’s abduction to a point where the earth nearly perished. This poem begins with her not yet knowing all that has happened. I picture her as a mother desperate to know what has happened to her child.

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This is one of two lamentations of Demeter I’ve written. The second will follow at some point.

Demeter

Demeter

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To listen to an audio recording of me reading this poem, click on the link below and wait a few seconds for it to begin:

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The First Lamentation of Demeter

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How is it that I don’t know where she has gone?

        I warned her.

I told her time and time again not to trust them,
that there were those who so longed for her
they would stop at nothing.

        And who was right?

Like all girls her age, she could be headstrong,
believing her own mother too old
to understand those yearnings.

         I warned her.

Last night I watched the dog star rise up.
Its magnificent beams were like beacons
that might lead me to my lost child.

        Why is it the stars are silent?

O, Sirius, your brilliant rays reach down
to us and yet your silence is puzzling.
Surely you saw where she went, my only child.

        Will no one tell me where my Persephone has gone?

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Grief-Statue

On Rewriting a Poem

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{Sometimes old poems ask to be reworked. This is a small example of just that.}

 

 

                                  

On Growing Old Together, A Love Poem

 

Will you scatter me over water
or throw me to the winds,
letting me float away?

 

Will your ashes mingle                                                                                       
with mine one day
when you too are gone . . .

              Ashes to ashes . . .

 

Will you take my hand again
and hold me close against the wind?
Will your eyes always smile with mine?

              Dust to dust . . .

 

Will our hearts travel as one
no matter where that might be?
Will our love be forever?

              Two stars together.

 

 

 

November 2025

 

This is a love poem written for my husband. We met in 1974, fifty-one years ago. This poem originally appeared on this blog in 2015, but I was never really happy with the ending. It never felt “right” to me. Those of you who are writers will know the feeling. You will know that some poems are meant to pop up again for you to rework it until it really is complete, and this is what I have done.

 

Growing older together has been a gift to both of us. We have shared so much and grown so much. Love is the one constant in the equation we call life. This poem is dedicated to my beloved husband and to all who have loved and been loved.

 

 

I’ve recorded myself reading the poem should you care to listen. Just click on the button below and give it a half a minute to begin. 

 

Ritchie and Mary, 1976

Melting snow (haiku)

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This haiku of mine placed in the Golden Triangle Haiku Contest in Washington, DC. Each poem selected appears on a placard in downtown DC. What delight to have this one accepted this past spring and what excellent company to have.

From their website:

The 2025 Golden Haiku competition set another record-breaking year, receiving over 4,750 haiku worldwide from all 50 states, D.C., and 66 countries. Youth participation reached an all-time high as well, with more than 600 haiku submitted by school-age poets. Winning and selected haiku were displayed on colorful signs throughout the Golden Triangle from March through May.

All entries were reviewed and judged by a distinguished panel of published haiku experts including Abigail Friedman, Lenard Moore, and Kit Pancoast Nagamura.

Golden Haiku follows the Haiku Society of America’s guidelines for modern haiku, which does not require the traditional 5-7-5 structure. Removing the strict structural requirements for syllables frees the author to use evocative language to capture a moment or expression of beauty in a short, descriptive verse.

Voices in the Wind

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This is an old poem that was originally posted in the early days of this blog, back in 2015. My writing lately has come to a standstill, but rereading things written a while ago is often a way to trigger a creative response. (Let’s hope it works.)

The poem was written when we were living in London for a spring term with university students who were studying abroad. Wonderful memories of that group who are now fully grown and probably leading interesting lives.

We live in Chapel Hill, North Carolina in a beautiful rural development that is filled with gardens and trees. Our single acre plot is divided into flowers, vegetables, invading weeds and cultivated trees. The back half of our acre is woodland and beyond that runs a small railroad track that is used for a daily single train that carries coal to the university nearby. Sounds are important. In winter we can hear a distant passenger train at night. In summer it’s blocked by all the greenery. Chapel Hill is truly verdant as is the nearby town of Hillsborough. Our trees are a mixture of hardwoods (oak, hickory, beech and evergreens (mostly loblolly pines but a few small cedars and hollies). Our beautiful Camellias bring winter color and our small (hand-dug) pond delights us with frogs serenading one another. Southern summers are never quiet. Katydids and Cicadas sing during the hottest part of the year, and all sorts of songbirds visit as we work in the garden or sit on the screened porch.

One of my favorite parts of living here is listening to the trees blow. Whether a storm is coming or not, the very tall trees have a life of their own as they blow and move. It is quite often a very sacred sound.

The trees today brought to mind this ten year old poem for me to reread (and now, to repost).

Questions was originally published on this blog on June 19, 2015.
Ten years ago and still the same questions arise.

I hope you enjoyed reading this “oldie” today.

freedom is never cheap

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Poem for my Father, a  Soldier

                                                            (for Jan Ciosmak, d. 1955)

Only 20 when you left home,
Fleeing the war in Europe.
Leaving behind all you knew,
Leaving behind your parents,
And your eight sisters.
You, the only son.

Coming to a country, but not
Knowing the language or customs.
Not having any waiting friends.
That took courage.

When you told your family
That you were leaving, knowing
They’d never see you again
Or you them,
What went through your mind?

Did your mother weep uncontrollably?
Did your father pat you on the back?
Did your family urge you to flee?
Did they fear invaders and death?
No stories came down to us,
And so no stories now remain.

Time passes.

All I remember is being told
How you fled the big war in Europe,
Only to be conscripted here
To fight in your new country,
The US Army calmly taking you,
You who were already uprooted
And leading you back
Over the ocean, back over the sea.
I’m sure the irony was not lost on you.

This time you wore Army khaki.
Did you wear it proudly?
A brand new uniform all crisply pressed,
Thick leather boots ready for
The fields and the trenches.
A soldier now, they said.

They prepared you well, it seems.
You survived the trenches, and 
You survived Meuse-Argonne.

Did you understand the French?
Was English now your tongue? Did
Your ears yearn to hear the consonant
Rich language of your first home?

Time passes.

What was it like standing hidden
In earthen trenches, the acrid air,
The bullets spent, shell casings underfoot?
How many other boys suddenly
Grew into men in those French fields?

I picture you there, not knowing,
Wondering how your family was.
And you, all alone.

Could you understand enough
To hear someone’s dying words
Or maybe to learn the story about
A young family waiting back home?
Did you share your own promises
And hopes or were you silent?

Time passes.

And then it stopped.
On the eleventh hour of the eleventh day
Of the eleventh month,
all fighting stopped.
Sudden and eerie silence.
What was it like to realize
You were now safe, and
Had your life ahead of you?

A life. Your life.
You had it free and clear.
You were one of the lucky ones.
Why you but not them?
Did you grieve during the dark
Nights of all the loss you’d seen?
Or did you push it all deep inside
Letting it exist in its own private place?

The price of freedom is so dear.
The loss of soldiers, so much life
And stolen youth. The veterans
Who made it back in pieces,
Who were never the same,
Could never be the same.
No one left unmarked.

Yes, the price of freedom is so very dear.
A price paid over and over in so many wars.

Time passes.

Long after you died, and I was finally grown,
I found your Army papers that said only
That you were honorably discharged
And had fought in those famous battles
In such faraway, strange places.

The places you lost your youth
And became a seasoned veteran,
A man of courage, a solider who was
One of the lucky ones. I hope you wore
Your uniform proudly, knowing that you
Were one of so many brave men.
French, English, Polish, American,
The list goes on for the victors.
But I mourn all who were lost.
On all sides.
So many mothers wept, and it continues
Even today. The loss is great,
But freedom is never cheap.

We who sit and write these poems,
Read those books, watch those movies
About wars, any wars, all wars,
Must always remember those who
Fought, those who served.

Those who died.
Those who survived.
They all served.
They all sacrificed.

Let those scarlet poppies bear witness
To the blood shed by all who have gone to war.

Let the trenches remain closed,
Let the flowers grow so that farmer’s
Fields remain at peace,
Remain at peace forever.

Time passes.
War passes.
Courage remains.

 

 

 

Note: I’m now 78, but my much older father fought in WWI in France, shortly after emigrating to the United States of America. I barely knew him. I never knew his story. But he had his story just as we all do. Why he left Poland and his family while so young is not recorded. No one is left to answer those questions. The one certainty is that he did his civic duty when called. He fought in one of the bloodiest battles in France. It’s nearly impossible to imagine all he saw, did, witnessed. 

 

Below are a few photos I found alongside some excellent articles in the New York Times on the Battle of the Meuse-Argonne.

 

 

 

 

 

Sea birds ride the thermals

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A tanka published in
Gusts No. 40, Contemporary Tanka, Canada,
fall/winter 2024  

sea birds
ride the thermals
beyond steep chalk cliffs—
I wonder what they hear
in the swirling wind