STORY of the POMEGRANATE

This bloke Hades,

an underworldish, lonely guy

fancied a naive puella

as she gathered meadow wildflowers, sillily unguarded.

He snatched her, as the story goes -

but it didn’t end there.

She became enamored of his       

netherworldly charm;

willingly, his dark Queen.

It wasn’t a fairy story with a moral or happy ending;

there were trickery and trade-offs

between gods, of all things.

She was a pawn, a giddy fool,

an archetypal victim

but her mum,

rep of Mother Earth herself

albeit instinctively loving,

was outraged and furious

wreaking havoc upon harvest

and season.

For humanity’s survival and so-called peace’s sake,

appeasement had a diplomatic deal.

But Hades, being smart, knew about pomegranates.

Persephone - not so smart

went on a royal hunger-strike:

whilst agreeably married,

but missing her mother.

One pomegranate seed, (let alone six)

had a regional price;

that could seem insignificant as she was quite hungry by then…

It was in fact a life-sentence:

an ungodly divorce cum heinous reconciliation.

A stalemate.