as to the age of the auriferous series*

Divya M. Persaud

a great disturbance and contortion:
metalliferous turbulence—
a distilled ardor;

face to earth’s core,
palms entrenched,
dendritic grace,

persephonic

(that fertile soil),

she exhibits
great disturbance
and contortion—

auriferous veins
arborescent,

her gentle toil.

*Based on Tate, R., Notes on the Geology of Guyana in Venezuela, Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society, 25, 343-350, 1869, and Book VI (“the golden bough,” 183-235) of The Aeneid by Virgil.

The Science

The mineral gold can form in hydrothermal vents and found in beautiful, tree-like (dendritic) forms. I quote the work of a geologist who described a gold-bearing (auriferous) geological unit in Guyana, South America, as a potential resource. Guyana, from where I draw my heritage, was the site of the mythical “El Dorado”, prompting colonists and their attendant naturalists to probe the Amazon rainforest and rich geology of the country in search for gold (as in the paper that I quote)—but it was also a site of indentured servitude. Under empire, women’s bodies as labourers are seen in this same way, a resource to be extracted. I relate this history and the quoted paper to a passage in Book VI of The Aeneid, in which Aeneas retrieves the Golden Bough from a tree as a gift to Proserpina (Persephone) to gain passage to the underworld to see his father—connecting this myth to women who are forcibly tied to resource extraction and politics, and made to accept their fates in silence, not unlike Persephone.

The Poet

Divya is a planetary scientist, writer, and composer. Her upcoming book, do not perform this: a song cycle, won the 2017 Editor’s Choice Award from the ‘Great’ Indian Poetry Collective, and her poems have appeared in Anomaly, The Deaf Poets Society, and The A3 Review. She released her first album, THEY WILL BE FREE, in 2017, which combines classical music and epic poetry. She has read her work at the Homegrown Festival and the Split This Rock! festival, and spoken about her art internationally. Divya is completing her Ph.D. on 3D imaging and geology of Mars. Find her at divyampersaud.com.

Next poem: Bowen’s Reaction by Samantha Abel-Zurstadt