A Spritely Reminder
Her long sleeved robe matched the hue of the plants so perfectly
that it was hard to tell where the rest of the color and her form began.
Her skin was a papery, ghostly white.
Her hair, an intense blond, curled around sky blue eyes
and her laugher pinged like a the wings of a beetle
Opalescent Emerald Green.
She skipped through the air to the avian massive,
bare feet brushing the tips of the lush and sun-dotted grasses.
"What, for you, may I affix,
Creature of the Air, with wings of blackest Onyx,
Buried deep in the Earth, who in the mirroring dark hope to turn to Stone yourself,
Where the land is parched of Water, and the Fire of sunlight does not delve?
My everlasting duty is to you, even when you stray
I, who see life, in its own places and ways
Sprout up, healthy, from newly scorched land ash-dry,
And rise up, gladly, to soar even in a cloud-wet sky."
At the last two louder, echoing earnest lines of the incantation,
swirling patterns began to “Sprout up” on zem, the huge spirit
radiating and carving pearle-scent white through purple-toned Opalescent Onyx.
A new scent spread
The albino vines branched down the length of zeir back and crept
over zeir shoulders onto the chest,
and still moving, “scorched” into tiny, almost floral bursts in places.
They went across the solid parts of zeir wings,
across the two alulae feathers,
painting delicate stripes on the vanes
of the flight shafts to “soar” to the very tips.
At “wet,” moist eyes blinked with new sight
And when she took her hands away, the beak had, too, turned white
The owl stood straight and rotated zeir neck, puffing feathers and shaking head from side to side, Meek,
opening and closing the newly In-her-it-ed mouth from the Earth sprite with which ze would speak.
The now patterned body dipped low, spreading wings flat across the ground in a regal sweep.
In a new voice ze said, “Every gratitude, My Balancer, Innocence Keeper.”
The chosen daughter of Mother Earth floated around zem, admiring her handiwork.
“So depart, and always remember that Innocence, though it can be lost, can also be found again, in many ways.
You may not be as spritely as one you were,
but a sense of discovery can remain new,
even with experience, old bird, old timer.
Childlike wonder belongs to everyone, even you.”
Copyright © Molly Simkins | Year Posted 2016
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