creation

Gathering the fabric of her skirt, she stretches an upward arm

Veins straining, she grasps a sturdy branch

Red ankles on display.

With a final heave, she clambers over

Flimsy sandals scraping the surface of its bark

She looks mournfully as a small shower of wood shavings float downwards-

like bits of paper cast from a building

It steals her sympathy for a moment

Before she turns,

And sees the whole world.

Nestled atop the highest branches, she smiles.

A strange feeling of vastness pools in her heart

Silently, she searches for the words to describe this

This perfect, lonely moment of peace

A oneness with creation

Of infinity captured in this humbling smallness

To feel so tiny yet so loved.

Tilting up, a family of green rushes into her gaze

She pays attention to each individual leaf

Each one a different shade. “kelly green, juniper…” she notes under her breath

Twirling in the breeze to a soundless tune

Only they can hear.

“Funny,” she mused, “how they speak by just being”.

Against the sky’s sapphire blaze, a light rain pelts on her bare arms

With a quiet farewell, she makes her way down

A duskiness has quickly fallen

Patient smears of light interlace with the gloom

Counselling the twilight to slow down

Dark clouds resist, orbiting the struggle between Day and Night

A mcflurry sky.

She goes yonder into the orange grove, a crisp breeze picking up

So ripe, the oranges seem to leak their very fragrance into the warm air

Inhaling, her lungs take in the sweet grass and spicy tangerines

Her eyelids droop

Soft, violet light floods the meadow.

Finally.

The Night is no longer young-it is the witching hour

But she isn’t spooked; just melancholic

Above, she sees Cassiopeia

Below, the ground has gone cold

Aching her now stiff limbs

Around, a nipping chill pricks her skin

I could hear her bones quivering

In a warm body of flesh,

She was cold and just a smidge sad

So I magicked a gown of moonlight

and bid the astral winds carry her to me

Carefully I hung starlight on her temples

a bridal veil; for my love

Night dew on curly lashes

slightly, perfectly ghostly

She swirled in slow, dying cirques; like the last evening star

and I could only watch

breathless,

as she and the moon wed each night

She was in love once-it was a long time ago

Yet, she cannot forget.

Nor can she remember.

She searches for his face in her memory-but it is like grabbing at smoke

Yet her heart beats with the memory of Him

Just flashes but they’re there- a warm palm, a garden more than Beauty itself

She cannot forget.

I would come by her green windows each morn

and we’d exchange,

Cool morning kisses

like drops of condensation on her butter box

She did always love drinking the wind

She never realized

How perfect her cracks were; a hiding place

 for all the colors of the sun

Her heart of art

Painting a world that had forgotten to dream

It is the birds who wake her

She dreamt that her arms had melded into a strong pair of beautiful wings

And she had flexed her powerful muscles, brushing the loftiest treetops

But now she awakes, heavy and flightless

A longing- so, so deep her heart could implode

Warm tears course down her windblown cheeks

She climbs the tree once more and huddles in its deepest corner

Tasting the saltiness on her lips

“I know you’re real.”

“I can feel this invisible cord that knots my heart to yours. I never seem to make it very far before I feel it’s tug; sharp and painful, forever binding me to you. 

Why would you love me only to leave me here in exile?”

The tears drip down her chin, knowing she would never get an answer

He, whoever He was had probably forgotten.

She thinks I’ve forgotten about her

 but the truth is I never did

How could I forget her;

when it was thoughts of her soul

that filled my every waking moment

The sound of her light, dancing feet

before the sky opened its eyes.

I had to tell her.

‘Before I taught the birds to fly, before I lit the stars in the sky

I loved you.’

She was everything; a hundred granular wonders

 breathed into one perfect, beautiful thing.

I never seem to make it very far before I feel it’s tug; sharp and painful, the cord of her existence forever binding me to her.

She never realized,

how she was a bonfire

in a world gone cold,

And so I needed her to stay- to warm the deep frost buried within most.

for she loved the world

and it loved her right back.

I had to tell her.

She was perched on Old Rocky; our cliff

 the one that both thrilled and scared her- she did always like paradoxes,

said it looked especially good on people

‘kinda like You, ya know? You’re so quiet-but that’s what makes your presence so loud,’ she’d say against my chest.

I whispered down the breeze

And over the geysers, frosted pink in the cheekbone of day

Gently, so gently,

 I came up behind her and brushed the reddest hair

the shade of cerise; so much that the strawberries believed she was one of them

“Because Earth is the right place for love.”

A quiet voice had spoken from the depths of her layered soul

“Because Earth is the right place for love.”

I sent her a flowering tree that day; a sign of hope

They came in flotillas, a bounty in their descent

She did always love almond blossoms

Oh, she loved them all; cherry, apple but almond best

a slice of the past, she called it

a time when the little painter fellow was truly happy

She sat and watched,

just as she had for centuries

Dying as soon as they lived; (how had she never noticed)

shrouding the earth with white hope

She hugged her knees to herself and breathed,

'I hear you.'

“And I’ll always remember this. Blue sky, cream clouds.”

Our little piece of forever.