Among the Goddesses

Lily Among the Goddesses, Act III

64 and I knew I was going to travel to Ohio. Eve had a friend there, a gardener; she’d told me often of how they had lived there together, and reminded me I could always go there for guidance. I needed someone now, now I was pregnant, and empty, and hollow. It was time for moving. I needed to go. So, with everything finished and sealed, my boxes in storage with friends, some mementoes, including Eve’s thimble and all of her glass, the day the new owners were coming, I said a kind of goodbye to the memory of Eve, goodbye to the stone and the trees by the door, the gray morning ocean, the hills by the bay, and started, just Brigid to tell me she’d been there, leaving a hollow space in the morning. Act III Scene 1. Demeter’s garden in Ohio: tall ripening tomatoes mixed with many herbs and flowers, near the side of a large barn. Demeter is picking peas and dropping them into a large tin mixing bowl as Kouretes chant repeatedly, to the traditional tune: “Isis, Astarte, Diana, Hecate, Demeter, Kali—Inanna.” Lily approaches silently and watches as Demeter sings to herself. Demeter: Long grass pushes up under the trees, hyssop, bee balm, lavender, chicory, mallow, johnny jump up, love in a mist, coneflower, blackeyed susan,broccoli, in my circular garden that curves from the earth. . . 65 Lily (to herself and audience): Her hands are as wide, cool, and earth-stained as mossy old rocks that a forest has patiently grown up around, died around, fallen near. Demeter: spine in the planet, blood in the wind, as I drop the peas in the aluminum bowl. . . spine in the planet, blood in the wind . . . Kouretes (under the following conversation): spine in the planet, blood in the wind . . . Lily: The arms of the planet are holding me alive. Demeter: I know everything old about Eve Lily: Eve, the face of Demeter teaches me, Demeter: rose from fire as well as earth: Lily and Demeter (standing to face each other): Eve was the full gleam of light on the water. Demeter: Eve fell beside me, and rose and fell; dark Eve, my own loss, my heartbeat, my sister, Lily: Eve speaks to me often without loss or damage in my heart from the place of the dead, the place of the openings that I have found. 66 Lily and Demeter: Eve fell beside me, and rose and fell Lily crouches to help Demeter. Demeter (murmuring quietly as she works): hyssop, bee balm, lavender, chicory, mallow, johnny jump up, love in a mist, coneflower, blackeyed susan, broccoli, in my circular garden that curves from the earth. . . ...