
Now is the season when the goddess Demeter welcomes her daughter Kore (or Persephone) back from the Underworld, her joy at the reunion kindling Spring for the world. Here she finds in the first daffodil her beloved daughter's presence.
DEMETER'S DAFFODIL
(for Willow at Magpie Tales)
To dip
into your corolla
carefully one wintry
finger and touch
to my throat
what I hear begin tuning
up downwind,
the little frogs
chorusing cullowhee
cullowhee, Cherokee
shivaree down by
the rain-swollen Tuckasee-
gee, what sweeter
scent than the attar
of you ever
after come back
to me, Golden
Girl!
My laughing daughter!