The sound echoed sharp almost metallic, the quiet such an empty barrel. From the ledge Lokea looked across the Wood and found the flat top of the old fir. The woodpecker was done with the fir for the moment his wings carved space above all the others in search of some other Tall One with need of his vital service no doubt. Relieved that the noise was not a chain-saw the old woman set her cup down and let herself be absorbed by the quiet of the space. “You’ve been here all week,” her husband’s statement innocent enough. The fact that she had lived almost seven days without leaving the Ledge was something. “They measure in such small increments,” Tandalori assessed and wondered how Lokea would respond or if she would respond at all. The crone was now nearly four hundred cycles, well used to the many forms of change that take place in the Here and There. Criss-crossing the boundaries of space and time might have been tricky business for someone with less vintage. In this case, Tandalori was perhaps the most skillful of all at wearing time lightly. She had no business elsewhere and leaned from her vantage point to listen and watch.
Lokea Bird accepted the fact that she could not fold origami cranes. Day after day she picked up the empty red packaging that had held her English Breakfast tea bag, snipped the sides to make a square and began working the foil paper. Willing her fingers to remember what her mind could not Lokea began the complex folds that had once been a daily ritual. Somewhere between folds something was lost. The crane was there she was simply not where it was. “Maybe tomorrow,” she concluded. Memory for words faces and things lost their value for now. As complex as some days were she welcomed the shortfall with gentleness. Now that was something.
Seasons had changed on the Ledge since the dandelion wagon first parked between Tutu and the families of fir, hemlock and pine. Travelling Frog and his queen Bernadette spent the ninety days of warming the old dears as they slept inside the wee wheeled wagon. The weariness of wet wool dried and like the rest of the outer wear it too could be hung on pegs. When the level of the pond neared the point of transformation Travelling Frog sat on the top stoop of his wagon sniffing, noting the thick hatch of flies and mosquitoes. “Summer’s come my darling Froggie,” Bernadette joined her mate and sent one slender arm the color of tea and milk around the Gypsy Frog’s shoulders. “It has in deed.” A taste of salty sadness filled him. Both knew it was time to leave The Bird and her man to their destiny. “There’s room for time to slow within the old ones just there. The dreams have come flush with their past dealings and both now see us Fairies as part of Ever.” T.F. twirled the sides of the fiddle ferns now towering over the roof of his wagon. Cloaking the tiny wagon home a usual fairy practice had been eased since Josephine drank the dose of nectar-of-place. “We can begin the migration to the
Lokea and Pat made room for the nodding of the firs and the electricity of pink rhododendrons in spring, time slowed and the trees began to bear their skins. “Who ever named tree skin bark?” Lokea finally answered. Pat was used to his questions being hung like summer laundry. Pegged on the line flapping in the breeze it could be answered with more questions or a variation that might serve as an answer. He laughed at the way his mate made sense of the rhetoric he often batted into the air between them. The two had spent nearly every minute of the past many years within a few yards of one another. There was a strange comfort that circled them because of it. Maybe the intimacy of Diaspora does that as a defense against the soul’s dissolution. Maybe it was sorcery. “A fool with no real acquaintance with them at all I’d guess.” The tall lean man caressed the top of his wife’s tangle of hair and kissed the back of her neck. “Some fool no doubt.” Her round face and full cheeks angled up for kisses and she got them.
Tandalori smiled to hear the woman’s question and nodded wordlessly to her longest time companion. “The Flicker was busy this morning. Are the crawling ones finding your old skin a fitting feast?” Nui laughed a deep low rumbling laugh, a slow sort of ripple that began in the feet of the grand fir nearly two hundred measures below. “You never lose your sense of humor Crone. I would say your question be better directed to them rather than me. It does not matter in the while the nibbling and the paring away of the old skin. But the hammering does annoy me when it’s a nap I’m after.” Throughout the Cosmos the Tall Ones have a reputation for being life-givers and seemed to simply accept things like burrowing beasties and long-billed birds with little concern. Kupuna Nui was nearing his four hundredth cycle on The Planet as this story begins. “It’s a fine day for the winds and yet they are pressed to keep up with the craziness that fills the skies today. They … Nui tilted his long deep eyes to the haze of cloud-like shapes …continue to tamper with the work of order and it tires us, but mostly it makes us weep.” Trails of exhaust from the human’s jet muted the deep blue of a daylight sky. The crushed glass leavings sprayed from the passing jets dusted the air screening the sweet tenderness of an innocent world. Tandalori felt the sadness and the irony in Nui’s comment. The community of Tall Ones and the winds who migrated or stayed close to the high mountain ridges all wept to keep the Cosmos clean and yet tears were not enough.
Only a handful of the crones as ancient as Tandalori continued to make Earth their ground of choice, and her reasons for staying bloomed with the season upon them this spring. “I tire of the arrogance that weighs so heavily on you from the mortal and still you give them life. There’s a tilt to the planet coming and you know that will mean …” Kupuna Nui knew what was coming and in unexpected fashion the patient one interrupted. “Things will turn top side down. What roots will fly. What flies will root.” The rhyme was powerful and true, a time of topsy-turvy waited impatiently. Tandalori cackled, spinning in tight circles just above the fir’s ridged top causing a clearing, emptying the chaff-scattered air. Like a drill the crone rose deeper into the sky, laughter echoing, wings held tight against her side Tandalori laughed her way through the poisoning jet streams to find her sister. It certainly was time for the next steps. Though Kupuna Nui was rooted to the slopes of Ever his soul had traveled from stars billions of light cycles long forgotten. Stars which were common to both Tandalori and Kupuna watched, and the old woman who questioned the naming of bark for tree skin was watched as well. Magenta Moon, Tandalori’s twin stirred the sticky syrup while one brilliant pink eye scanned the sickeningly pale sky between her and Earth. Conning in her sister’s direction she invoked, “Nectar of the place be ready tonight. The glass of the sky is just not right. Make it a promise. Make it a spell. The twist and the turn are upon them.”
The Tall Ones watched and they felt the air above them clean. Nui conned across the glen of Ever to Tutu who was alert to the happenings. “Those witches are making mischief. I’d be a frog or a goblin if that be a mistake. Seems the full breath of the Reassembling draws short in the making. What part will be played here, the Tall Ones are waiting.” “So you’d be a frog would you now?” Travelling Frog emerged on perfect cue. The two elders roared with laughter at the exquisite timing of the Gypsy Fairy’s entrance, and if you have ever been in the presence of a forest roaring with laughter you’ll know … laughter is contagious. Counting in singles from high ridge to lake’s edge the Tall Ones numbered more than five thousand. These fir, hemlock and pine considered themselves the remaining Woods of Ever. Except for Kupuna Nui who survived the original saws, these trees are the second and third generation of Tall Ones. Joshua Tree inherited guardianship of the Woods of Ever and it was his laughter the trees sought. In no small way it was his playfulness and sense of joy that was the essence of the nectar of place. Important this piece of information dear ones who listen and same for those who read: it was his laughter the trees sought.
After a session of woods-filled laughter a being is infused with stardust. Night or day the laughter of the woods beckons to the dust of past stars and draws to it the future possibilities. It is the most delightful sensation. Travelling Frog smiled broadly, and settled at last from the ecstasy. “Mortals are rarely quiet or slowed enough to hear or feel the playfulness of a wood during laughter. Few come to the Woods of Ever with light heart and easy rhythm of time. The old dear mortals who live within Pond and
The crone was bent on corrections and yet knew the limit to her finagling. Tandalori listened in particular to the sideways brain ticklings of Patrick Nicely. “He’s a leprechaun in a very tall mortal body. Moving side to side he longs for the laughter yet gets swept up by the loudness of urgency. Time will teach him. Time will tell.” Of course you who listen and read the unfolding story have noticed … it is only Joshua Tree who first came to the Woods of Ever with young soul and easy heart. His legacy indeed is planted in his name of origin. He is a tree and that makes the difference.
The first heat of the cycle came with force. The breeze found comfort else where and EVER and everything alive relished the fullness of the sun. Blossoms miniature and miss-able to most popped from the ground coverings silently awaiting the green light. Pollens spread the fine dusts of creation without asking, it was their job to do it and so it was. Still resting in the high altitude of Kupuna Nui’s outstretched limb, the elder fir woke Travelling Frog from his revere.
“Tandalori and Magenta are mixing the brew of remedy. The tilt will come sooner than later. Timing will be sure. Turnings will come bright. Make things right. While in the
T.F. understood his mission and accepted it with rekindled love for the man who had built the cabin now in shambles to the untrained eye. The Cosmos makes no mistakes. Will run riot is not pretty to live with, and yet when the stars, planets and celestial bodies slip into their groove mortal will gets set to right … or left. The recipe for the nectar of place was slipping into the groove and the worn cabin and its stove topped hut next door would play mayor parts in the further unfoldings of this tale.
