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Oh, but we are bound by our
Earths, we who bloom underground.
The spike and stalk who curl ‘round
The hands that hold them steady,
Bident and pitchfork and crown and wreath
Of flowers, sweet, sun-warm. Myself,
Though cold and distant from the world,
Heated at the cheek by your glance
Meadow-fresh and —
“Goin’ with blank verse, huh? Bold move.”
Hades straightened from his position hunched over his desk and leveled a blank glare at Hermes. In the dim light from the wall sconces, the godly messenger looked more sallow than usual, cheekbones sharp and shadowed on his face. Even his wings slumped lower than their normal arrogant arc.
Served him right.
“There’s a rhyme right there,” Hades said, tapping his forefinger against the page.
“You rhymed ‘round’ with ‘round.’” Hermes sighed. “Should I call Apollo?”
Hades tossed his pen aside and clutched at his hair. “What am I doing wrong?”
Picking up the page left neglected on the desk, Hermes hemmed and hawed over the scant few lines that made it from Hades’ mind and into ink.
“It’s a good effort. Honestly. Strong start,” he said, and hopped up to sit on the corner of the desk. A shining mercury feather fell onto Hades’ hand, which he dejectedly blew away. “You did get a little sappy at the end, there.”
“It’s a love poem, it’s supposed to be sappy.”
“But the right kind of sappy,” Hermes said, nudging Hades’ head with his golden sandal. “Let me help you, please, I’m begging.”
Leaning back in his seat, Hades rolled his eyes and waved a hand. “If you must.”
It wasn’t that Hades was a terrible poet. In fact, when the gods were young, long before the uprisings and the wars, he wandered the world and crafted stories of his own. For ages he walked, body unbroken by the tests of time, and marveled at what his people had created. Mountains struck the sky as great spines of giants, rivers flowed from the eyes of weeping gods, and there was nothing but wide sky above Olympus and miles of dust below the grass that tickled the soles of his feet.
And then he grew up. Wonder faded, and faint longing took its place, whispered in his ear when the corners of his kingdom stretched on, long and dark, meeting the sorrow in the deep reaches of his heart.
But, then…
Hermes watched as Hades drifted, his mind wandering down a well-worn path, and seized the moment. He leaned in close.
“How do you feel when you see her?”
The meadow. A whim to journey above seized, just to see, just one look. No chariot. Bare feet. And there, beyond the tree line, silhouetted in the morning sun. Petals reached for her if only to feel the heat of her skin, warm as summer air. She breathed, and life bloomed before her. It was wonderful.
He felt… It made him feel—
“New.”
Hermes slapped the page in front of him and shoved the pen into his hand.
“That,” he said, pointing at the carefully scrawled lines. “Write that.”
***
Do you remember the flowers?
The mountains? The rivers
run cold to the salt of the seas?
They are distant to me, echoes
of a world that has grown
beyond my measure.
I will not lie.
The longer my eyes
adjust to the dark,
the less I feel I can see.
And then you were there,
your hair, that wreath
of ivy and golden blooms
whose names have not yet
been spoken aloud,
curving leaves ‘round your
fingers as though they were
yours.
You bring my
withered
heart to beating.
You make my weathered life
feel new.
***
High above the deepest reaches of the world, where the barley grew tall and plentiful, a wing-footed messenger delivered a letter sealed with pomegranate-red wax. He left it in the hollow of a very special tree.
A goddess found the letter, but it was not the goddess whose name adorned the envelope.
She slipped it into her pocket with grim eyes and walked on.
***
“You delivered them?”
“Yes.”
“To where I said—”
“—yes!”
Hades’ head fell into his hands.
“Maybe she’s just not that into you.”
Hermes would feel the soul-rending burn of the glare Hades threw at him for years to come.
“Hear me out, though,” he said, hands up, placating. “Are you sure she feels the same way about you? This does seem a bit excessive.”
“Zeus,” Hades said as flat as he could muster.
Hermes frowned. “Point taken.”
Pressing a wax-sealed envelope into the messenger’s hands, Hades asked him once again.
And once again, the god answered.
***
I am long for this
world, as I am long
in the tooth that
bites the hand that feeds,
I admit. I have not taken
my crown lightly.
But if I were graced
with the gold of your
springtime smile
and summer warmth,
I may no longer
yearn for this crown
to be lighter, that you
may reap what I
may sow.
You raise my
hands in supplication.
I am a servant to
your song.
***
She wouldn’t call it snooping. She was merely looking for something interesting to keep her busy while her mother was away. Demeter had warned her to stay close to home, to not go wandering about in the fields as she had when she was younger. There were dangers, she said, that she could not protect her from.
But what was a warning to one who would not listen?
Sometimes if she moved aside the right baskets, Persephone would find stray tulip bulbs or seeds that missed the harvest when they rolled away from her mother’s careful hands. Shifting a bundle of cloth once yielded a beautiful horse carved from deep brown wood, its once pointed ears nearly worn smooth. Her greatest find was a silver headband that bent like a strong vine. That one was kept hidden at the bottom of the satchel that held dried narcissus flowers.
Today, her hands met the corner of a stack of folded papers tucked behind a loose panel in the corner of Demeter’s room. When she freed it from the darkness within the wall, her eyes fell upon a neatly tied bundle of sealed letters. Untying the knot, she leafed through them all, each one bearing her name in careful, gently scribed ink.
Persephone broke the seal of the topmost letter, heart in her throat, and read.
And then, she ran.
High above, a winged god sighed in relief.
***
All we can do in
this life is hope
the best may come
to us. It is this same
hope I hold for you.
Hope that you hold
these letters as
you hold your beloved
yellow-white petals,
loved and warm.
Am I too much? Have
I strayed too close
to your sun, blind
to the burn you wish
me to feel? Only say
once that my words are
unwelcome, and I will
keep my distance
forever.
Where I saw you
and you saw me
that blessed morning,
speak love, and I
will come running.
***
As day fell to dusk, as the voices of the wild grew quiet, he waited. This world did not know him as it used to. Grass bowed away from his feet, trees creaked as he passed them by, the birds hushed at his presence.
But he was warm. Warmer than he had been all his life.
In the meadow stood a goddess with flowers in her hair.
She reached out to take his hand, and the world bloomed bright and new.