She stepped from the gloom,
Into the light of the Hunter’s Moon.
Why a Hunter’s Moon she pondered,
As along the path she wandered.
The moonlit path littered with leaves,
And sounds of exhalations as she breathes.
The scraping of squeaking limb,
She begins to hum a hymn.
Crack! A small branch falls down.
She walks more rapidly towards town.
And instead of hymn starts to chant,
“The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want.”
The moon shine is not yet obscured
By the eclipse penumbral so rare.
She wanders on without a care,
As one to nature’s ways inured.
The eclipse, penumbral, was it not?
Yet at that moment darkness fell complete.
Hands cruel; breath hot.
Wrestled to her knees, then feet.
But are these human hands, she thought.
Or did she fail the gods of yore,
Who rose up from the earth’s hot core?
As she gasped, an eerie laugh,
And voice, not spoken, telepath,
Rang in her ears, as every year.
It’s time to come, Persephone.
Three months you’ll stay below with me.

Martha Wainwright, sister of Rufus Wainwright, sings a poignant mother’s lament about a lost daughter. This song was written by Martha’s late mother, Kate McGarrigle.