The First Fall

The First Fall
by Linda M. Crate

Demeter’s children are wilting,
but none fall as hard as Persephone —

tricked by the lull of pomegranate,
it’s garish hue pleasing to the eyes

of youth that feast upon the world
a little differently than those that

are wiser to the wily ways of it’s
brood; but that’s all in the past now —

there are things that cannot be undone
even by the gods; some things that fall

like rain no matter how hard you try
to avert your wings from the splashes;

sometimes you get weighted down
in the volume of all the problems, that

you can forget like Demeter that spring
will come again along with Persephone.

* * *
Linda M. Crate is a Pennsylvanian native born in Pittsburgh yet raised in the rural town of Conneautville. Her poems have been previously published in Magic Cat Press, Black-Listed Magazine, Bigger Stones, Vintage Poetry, The Stellar Showcase Journal, Ides of March, The Blinking Cursor, The Diversified Arts Project, The Railroad Poetry Project, Skive, The Scarlet Sound, Speech Therapy, Itasca Illinois & Willowtree Dreams, Dead Snakes, The Camel Saloon, Write From Wrong, Moon Washed Kisses, The Wilderness Interface Zone, Samizdat Literary Magazine, Danse Macabre, and the Horror Zine. Her short stories have been published in Carnage Conservatory, Daily Love, Circus of the Damned, Linguistic Erosion, and Yesteryear Fiction.

What advice do you have for other fantasy poets?

Just keep writing. It's hard sometimes (I got 19 rejections one day!), but you have to keep pushing on. Don't give up. I heard this advice on the news one day: "Keep believing in your dreams even if no one else does." I believe that's completely essential to any writer. You just have to persevere. Even J.K. Rowling was rejected twelve times before her masterpiece was published, and look where the Harry Potter franchise is now! It's not easy to follow your dreams, but nothing good in life ever came for free. Don't ever stop, don't let anyone convince you that you're not good enough. The day you do that is the day that you've let them win. Prove your critics wrong, make them eat their words.