Herewith an ancient Grecian urn,
An ancient spirit of an unknown poet
Pines for the Divine Mania to inurn
The Great Four Madnesses as yet.
Against a Circle of Time ever more,
His pursuit of the Great Mania restless
And undead forever haunting thereafter
Circles an epicycle orb in orb timeless.
The Religious Madness from Dionysius – He knows no believing.
The Poetic Madness from the Muses – He looks to elsewhere.
The Madness of Love from Aphrodite – He experiences no feeling.
The Pythia’s Inspiration from Apollo – He turns to elsewhere.
Wherefore the poet runs after the Great Mania,
The delusion of Perfection still orbits the urn
In a room of Ancient Gallery of misty panorama
Of the incessant enthusiasm for the Great to yearn.
Like an ancient statue of marble,
She was sitting there alone, noble;
Like a flower soaked in crimson waters,
She was drowning deep in Rivers of Fears;
Like a fairy ogled by an eager ogre so foul,
She was seeking a niche to save her soul
Chased by terrors of the repulsive with a howl
Until she cried out loud, “Artemis! Save Me!”
Then was heard no more, seen no more, but a tree
High and solitary like a statue once sitting there.
Fresh-faced April, daintily bedight,
Adorned with a wreath of flowers,
Heralding her arrival in high spirit,
Liberating all from the grim shackles,
Breeding new lives into the gray kingdom,
Lets us leap with Joy of Spring in tandem.
The funeral offerings by a sepulcher for Eternity to a soul departed,
Crossing the River of the Styx to the gate of the Underworld,
Paying a fee to Charon for carrying the soul of the departed,
For without it, he will refuse to let him board his ferryboat indeed,
And the soul will wander around the shore for a hundred years stupefied
By Eternal Slumber in the amidst of the laments sung by those left behind
Until they are heard no more, seen no more, believed no more, and banished
Into the ancient all with his shattered dreams shuddered with fear – all in nil ended,
Are burnt in the funeral pyre as the embers spirit away in great red.
Veiled in the ancient shrine of the mysteries,
Robed in the esoteric knowledge of Olympus,
There appeared a numinous woman on the altars
Of a great temple built by Keleos, King of Eleusis
At the instruction of Demeter, the disguised goddess
Presiding over grains and the fertility of earth in distress,
For her daughter Persephone, deflowered by Hades,
The god of the Underworld was still retained in Hades.
The tale of woes so lachrymose with her eyes so dolorous
With the tears of the goddess welled with pains of heartaches
Began as Demeter called Keleos and other priests by the altars,
All of whom were equally intoxicated by her divine humanities
Of Anguish, Despondency, Dolefulness, and even Wretchedness
And listened to the elegy of their goddess of sacred grains
Of earth where now was barren and fallow for she was without grace .
“My daughter Persephone, the apple of my eyes, Flower of Flowers
On earth was ruthlessly ravaged by Hades, that dreadful Hades,
Of the Underworld, who then abducted her to his realm of darkness
Where only shadowy spirits wander with eyes depraved of lights,
Where the shadowy spirits importune for drops of blood for prophecies
To those a few mortals of valor destined for performing heroic feats.
There, Persephone, my beautiful daughter, was bound to Hades,
Who was also a brother of Zeus, god of gods, the ruler of the Universe,
Who was also an accomplice of this great crime, this god of gods!
Alas! Where’s Justice? Where’s Nemesis? Where’s God of the Universe
When this god of gods connived at his brother’s crime and sealed the mouths
Of other gods and goddesses who were nothing but divine cowards?
Thus, I searched high and low for my dear Persephone for nine days,
And on the tenth day, Hecate, a daughter of Rhea, and the sun god Helios
Came to me, for their pangs of godly consciousness disturbed by the pathos
Of my grief and lamentation was more divine than their divine essences
To tell me the crime of Hades and where my Persephone was that was
Hard to bear, harder to believe when my divineness was betrayed in Olympus,
Where all but I, the goddess of grains and fertility on earth was left amiss!
Thereupon, I fled Olympus, the ghastly place of godly beings in idleness
Who were nothing but abductors of fair maidens, manipulators of wars,
And conspirators of jealousy, all of it was against my nature and sacred office
With righteous contempt for all of it, I left that place of lewdness,
With no regrets, but with a longing heart for my Persephone in darkness.
Into this land of Eleusis, your land of Eleusis I wandered with hopes
Of meeting my Persephone one day as an old slave woman in disguise
Named Doso and met your wife by an old well near your splendid house
Where I became a burse to your son whom I fed ambrosia at nights
For Eternal Youth and put in the center of fire for Immortality, my Graces
To your kindly family till your wife full of foolish speculations
Betrayed my sacred appreciation and divine intentions and thwarted your son’s
Gifts of Eternal Youth and Immortality, the essence of the Immortals in Olympus!
Here, you built me my temple in honor of me, to initiate the Eleusinian Mysteries,
My Persephone will also preside for her four months’ stay on earth from Hades,
Alluring her to eat four pomegranate seeds, so she can’t stay here in bliss
For ever, forever with me, when the land will abound with crops and flowers,
And when you will purify yourselves with nine days of fasting and celibacy
with a consecration of the first grain harvested first of the year for the rites
In honor of me and Persephone, the goddess of spring of blissful liveliness.
Thus was a tale of the goddess, who was the goddess of humanities in essence,
Who was the goddess of the Eleusinian Mysteries with full of arcane principles
Of Purity, Morality, and Humanity, sealed in ancient secret rites so mysterious,
With sacrosanct pledges of select a few mortals mystified by the Mysteries
That would elevate the excitement of the souls and the passion of the hearts
Like no other in this world and in that world, afterlife where the spirits
In bliss promenading in the Eleusinian Fields boundless into the Mystic Universe.
Flame, Glass and Ink are Poems, essays, and reading notes by Stefania Joori Suh 
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