The Cyclamen.
She sits, her sharp cut cheeks of pink ….aglow .
I see her there, stuck on the supermarket shelf,
The pot too small for her…too round, too wrong for her
.. dynamic cyclamen…..so far from Mount Olympus and the Deities
who flirted with her on the Muses’ hills
near the Aegean Sea.
She is removed …
No longer wintering on slanting slopes
of milder climes.
Her tubers have been potted up
…and driven here
in an enclosed and unfamiliar truck..
That is her lot.
And few will know her history…
this petalled sunshine of the short dark days.
Or how Persephone would long for her
as Boreal winter took its toll
as far away as Macedonia.
The Solstice here in Arklow Town
comes dressed in rainy grey.
It must seem so remote to her..so far
from all mythology…
…and though she has adapted well…
…It’s not the same.
Kristine Byrne 22nd Nov. 2014