Lament for a Daughter

by Jena Woodhouse 

In darkness, cauled in purple wool you nest, my pale
Persephone; delicate, ephemeral spring iris
at your feet and head. 
 
Here lies a little girl, my child, robed in gold and violet.
Asclepius, great sage of health, why could you not
forestall this grief?
 
The autumn fever stole her breath – season of Dionysos:
she heard the flutes and drums, and begged to dance,
but lay delirious.
 
We dressed her for a different feast, fresh pomegranates
at her breast, and harvest fruits for sustenance,
to sweeten parting’s bitterness.

Her ivory doll we laid to rest, with sandals from the high priestess
to speed her through the asphodels, and fragrances
the priests had blessed.

May the sarcophagus guard well the gift it holds
in chill embrace, and may her spirit journey
among kindly shades, to Hesperus.
 
But I am desolate, bereft, estranged from life, at odds
with death: I long to share my daughter’s sleep
beneath the irises.

Hellenistic sarcophagus 
(from the period 323 BCE-31BCE)
Volos Archaeological Museum
Greece

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Jena Woodhouse, based in Queensland, Australia, is the author/ translator/ co-compiler of ten book and chapbook publications in various genres, five of which are poetry collections, most recently The Book of Lost Addresses: A retrospective (Picaro Poets 2020). Her poems were shortlisted for the Montreal International Poetry Prize in 2013 and 2015. Having lived and worked in Greece for ten years, she draws on that source as a site of continuing revelation and inspiration.