Before she blossomed, Mother used to make us her radiant
salad, of pomegranate seeds, figs, whole lemons and crushed
mulberries. She wrapped it in thyme leaves and latched the
packets tight with scorpion stings, to stay fresh on our
long trek down into the sulphur pits. We chewed our portions
and thought deep thoughts, sitting on boulders, taking our
turn to rest while our brothers sifted slowly through the
ash piles. And then climbed back down, down, down to search,
as always, for the finest bits, one tiny piece at a time,
there in the caves she had dug, when she first came,
millennia ago, through the heart of the moon.

She never gorged herself, but took each bit we brought her
as if it were the only one, clawing them gently into the
smallest of her many mouths. Mother is patient, more patient
than the Dark God crouching in the Void, more patient than
the Storm God who howls across the face of Jupiter. When she
was full, she wove herself a blanket and slept under it for
a year, while we waited. We did not make salad during that
time, and we have rarely made it since, only on the first
day of spring, when we commemorate that day that the blanket
fell and Mother burst into lavender, elderflowers, peonies,
morning glories, and all the most beloved flowers that
covered the face of the moon and spread their fragrance as
far as the deep tunnels running all the way to its core.