Common

From Great Expectations, Chapter 9




...she had said that I was common,
and that I knew I was common,
and that I wished I was not
common,
and that the lies had come of it
somehow,
though I didn't know how.

But Joe
took the case altogether out
of the region of
metaphysics,
and by that means,
vanquished it.

If you can't get to be oncommon
by going straight
you'll never
get to do it
through going crooked.

Pause you who read this,
and think
for a moment
of the long chain of iron
or gold,
of thorns
or flowers,
that would never have bound you,
but for the formation of the first
link
on one
memorable
day.

Hello, blogworld!  I've been gone a long time, so I'm not sure if anyone is out there!  I'm trying to get back into the swing of things by using We Write Poem's prompt #109, which asks us to make a poem from another writer's prose. All credit for this, then, must go to Mr. Charles Dickens.  Please note: "oncommon" is not a typo.  It is how the character Joe says "uncommon."

Demeter and Persephone

It was a hard-fought labor
that gave her life.
And so it was
her mother's right
to fight again
to bring her back
from the murk,
the seductive depths.

To call upon the gods
to restore her.

To pull her up,
to drag her out.
To insist that she re-break the waters
and remember her name.
To cajole, to whisper,
to cry out, to claim
her daughter
for the light.

It was that maternal push
to never forget
to always remind,
to wail and to rage--
to blight the crops
if need be--
that brought her daughter out,
whole and free.

So when she was restored,
she knew what saved her.

Reborn at last
to her mother's arms
and walking once more beneath the sun,
her gratitude
held her
in check.

She couldn't explain.
She didn't dare share
how the darkness touched her,
or who she was
when she was lost
down there.