Meadow Grievances

Twittering birds prance around a blue and white forest, delighting the gentle heavens with song. A fat river sets the rhythm, and a wave of the grass flows with it. The wind conducts this symphony, lacking harmony or time, but raising it with heart and spirit for it has known nothing but inspiring love from Life. She hums a tune with Sola which can often be heard humming back, not in voice but in feeling, and she lays bare on a cool stone, her tune calling for a bud to appear before her. Halting a moment, she wonders aloud, sweet and soft, “What color will you be, young flower? Will you gaze upon the glory of my sky and be fathered by its cloudy blue? Will you feel Sola’s golden hair brush over your leaves and sprout yellow?”

But then the sky changed its hue and Sola stepped below the Earth. Birds fled and silenced, and Life was, for once, a little colder. It seemed the whole world cowered away from a new stranger wandering through the fields and mountains. His eyes were not eyes; his flesh, not flesh. Curiously, he stooped over the riverbend, watching the water dance sporadically and the fish swim unknowingly. A trail of black, lifeless steps led to his white heels. Life, unwittingly saddened, caught the attention of the strange visitor. The gentle flickers of flame birthing ashen tears from his hollow eyes turned to meet her gaze. A tense moment broke under kind terms while the stranger slowly bent to the rippled surface of the river. A cold kiss was placed upon a fish’s curious scales mere seconds before a daring raptor swooped in.

Life harmonized a sheer cry with the fleeing raptor. “Death,” She started, a plea in her voice. “You are cruel.”

Death seemed to glide, looming, toward her, but rather than face his fires to her eyes, he focused on the bud sprouting beside them. With a gathered hand with tears of ash, Death leaned above the bud and spread the dust wide. “Not any more cruel than the raptor you have nursed,” He responded.

And the flower bloomed gray.