First, a Poem, sort of tossed out of my brooding heart, out of this boat of me. Perhaps I’ll breathe more freely if I can set this story free, and the poem may start to bend those bars. After the poem, a Photo. Then a Gratitude List.
Life in the Fairy Tale
It would help me to know
what my name is in this story.
Was I ever one of the innocent children
following the flowers
into the darkness of the forest?
I remember the day we came to that crossing,
the place where the paths diverged.
Isn’t the goddess supposed to sit there
wrapped in her robes, upon a stone?
Aren’t her dogs supposed to bark a warning?
I keep forgetting what happened next.
When did you hand me the impossible choice?
I would have been content to wait,
to sit on the stone and watch,
to see dark Hecate emerge
from between the two oak trees in the west,
to ask her a boon, to beg direction.
Instead I forged ahead into the wood,
taking neither path, the only way I knew.
This is the way. This is the way I must go onward.
But I can no longer hear your footsteps
on the pathway to my left.
I will not simply let the story fade
into the shredded mists of morning.
Not until I know my name.
When Ellis saw these sprouts this morning, raising their
heads above the soil, he said, “They’re like dragons! Breathing
their fire!” Oh, my Boy. By this evening, they’re all an inch taller.
What a wonder and a tenderness for him to take in.
Gratitude List:
1. Fire-Breathing Bean Sprouts
2. Khalil Gibran and the tenderness of letting go, saying goodbye, remembering.
3. The opening bud
4. Choosing, even when the choices seem impossible
5. Silk
May we walk in beauty. And wonder. And hope.
Mockingbird Chronicles 