As a freckle-star tumbled from the heavens, the little house nestled upon the onyx hill. It glowed amid the black of that abandoned mine. Broken slates were its daffodils. Rusted engines whistled in wintry winds. Whipped dust was its only confidant. I saw it from the city, aglow and yet alone. Legends are born in such places, far from the madding crowds. So one day, backpack snug to my shoulders, I made the climb with fullest-heart. Then there it was, a humble concrete dwelling, white painted, cherry window sills and blackest asphalt door. Sunsetting, a hearth fire flickering life into window panes, I raised my hand in request of entrance.
Train track, as earthbound ladder, absorbed the wide and generous curves. It’s clickety clack was the sweetest of rolling belly laughs. Maple clouds giggled in the sky above with a smiling cherry sun. From birdsong to the whisper of evergreens, the air’s ambiance came as a soul-wink. Mischief was in the air. One could taste it, feel it, from warming marrow to growing smirk. Something gloriously funny was afoot.
The wind was a zealot, a follower of destruction’s code. In hellacious mood it blew, it slew, it cut in blindest rage. Such was the insanity of that storm, that hurricane. There ne’er was a scream so wild. There ne’er was a torrent so thick. There ne’er was a cloud bank so oily-dense as that skyward barricade. Though ere long we assumed it’d pass, such violence is ne’er born to last long, it was a rent to soul and heart, a wrench of trauma’s hand.
The pulse of her tender wings, the butterfly, and my heart-beat were as one - solemn and lamenting. Each of us were near-silent. Each of us were near-frozen. Each of us were alone and together in the humid moment; for the air was bloated, heavy and close. It was a gloomy saturation. Lady light, it seemed, had forgotten her warm-lit songs and instead found the skin in cool bluish rays. Even the floral scent was sunken, though I cannot fathom how. In all of this, as companion and barometer, sat the butterfly. What I felt, she felt it too, those paper-wings cannot lie.
Oh darling feathered aeronauts, salve to every soul scratch and scar, do challenge your bonny range. For you sky-dance from high to higher, from lofty altitude to loftier still, and I am rendered in happiest awe. How my dreaming eye traces your air-path, the trail you skip upon with ease, writing your angelic script. Such is the attitude of the avian kind. The world, busy in its business may miss the enormity of your feats, but daily I see. I do. I witness. I love. So upon divine outstretched wings, glide and ride the free updrafts. Take your ease when you may and realise full-well how you’re adored.
The flute sang to the stars until their deepest hearts did pulse. In return the heavens did not sing, yet poured as water into the valley and remained there as star-freckled blackest ink. This, my friends, is no legend of old, for I saw it with my own eyes. I felt it with my own hands. I swam in its perfect ambiance, for it was both warm and sweet. As I dived within the flute music returned and oxygen did inflate my lungs. My pilot light burned brighter, swelling my heart anew. The flute I played that day is with me still, a humble yard of silver, a 'cup and string' telephone that divinity chose to answer.