Hora Hidden

where have you hidden, Persephone?

I hunted you

among the frozen

fronds of vernal fog

caught nary a glimpse

of your diaphanous flowering.

were you gowned in sophistry

teaching artifice to nubile acolytes

while old Boreas

stole your thunder

and you frolicked fur-clad

among the April snows?

or were you bullied into submission

grumpy overbearing blizzards

biting blue your tender skin

while you surreptitiously coaxed

timid fragile shoots

with chilled tears of impotence?

belated, you loosed your bonds

I felt your restless sighs

late one night as frost

cracked open, relinquishing

its hoary death grip

I whet my whistle in your tendrils

wrote a lilting ballad

so as to serenade

your zephyred dance

awoke

to find you gone.

where fled you, Thallo?

did you forsake your quenching reign

shrug off your leafing

wilted in abeyance

surrender your ascendance

to Damia’s wanton warmth?

or were you beguiled

with kiss-heated whispers

soaking your brow

as your rains are wont

while your cooling fingertips

traced a languid farewell?

my cheek chilled

just a moment

under your ultimate stroking

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