For Aidonian

Hail to you Persephone who sorrows,
daughter of loudthundering Zeus, and Demeter
who makes the Earth fruitful or barren as she pleases,
Goddess garbed in black and gold, with amber earrings
and a necklace of dead bees, Fasting One whose tears
moisten mortal springs, whose flesh bears the stigma
of your maiming, and the wounds you self-inflicted after,
you who lost your trust along with your innocence,
and then lost the beloved fruit of the unspeakable union too;
is it any wonder that you turned inward and became lost
in the labyrinth of your mind, tormented by grief and regret
and the emptiness where your baby should be, until Eubouleos
Dionysos managed to draw you out and restore you to your kind
and understanding husband Aidoneus, healed of the madness
that had been poisoning you, O Goddess dear to my heart,
mother of ash and the two-formed airy phantom. You took
the tattered fragments and stitched them back into something whole,
devising from your experiences rites that bring release
from the wearying wheel and an end to the repeating cycles
of violence and grief caused by ancestral trauma, rites that you,
Kore Chthonios, taught to Orpheus, the originator of our line.
So hail Persephone Lachrymosa, and please accept this offering
of wine, and honey, and milk with barley groats and pennyroyal
sprinkled on top, in gratitude for the care you show towards all the souls
that come into your custody, O much-revered Lady, and please, I pray,
especially watch over and protect everyone in my lineage.