The Elf

She stands wooden, leafy boughs raised in worship of the sun
- her tumble of sweet-scented petals caressed by scarlet butterflies –
and rustles in a whispered ecstasy as she shivers in the forest's breath.
She stands and is loved by the light as it kisses her leaves.
All around her, grass and shadows sway in time
to her unspoken, unsung – but not unheard – melodies.

Silence broken – she has spoken in a first-cry melody.
Crackling, curling branches part and bare a tiny face to the sun.
That soft little face that cries to the air the start of a time, a life-time.
With a tiny call that frightens away the placid butterflies,
gentle fingers push away the last of a sheltering womb of leaves
and the old, musty forest shares its breath.

The tree-daughter is on her feet almost before she catches her breath
and when she does she fills the forest with much sweeter melodies.
Her eyes are sunflowers, her hair is morning mist as it rests upon the leaves.
She rests upon a branch and sings as she basks in the sun.
She dries her form like the wings of a new-hatched butterfly
as she breathes and a ticking heart begins her lifetime.

She spends on that branch two days of her precious time
she spends it singing and growing and learning to breathe.
But when she is grown, fair and delicate as those scarlet butterflies
she must chase the distant, half-heard melody
of the life that waits beneath the warmth of the sun.
Hungry to chase it, the forest-child abandons the shelter of her mother's leaves.

She leaves-
and with music and wonder she fills the scant time
that she has to live under her beloved sun.
How can she bear to lie idle for even the space of a breath
when life is sweet as honey, full of dance and melody
and she will perish come the frost alongside her scarlet butterflies?

She flits from wonder to wonder, our forest-maid, impermanent butterfly.
She sings and dances and makes love and is blown on the wind with the falling leaves.
Her swansong is achingly pure, a singing of the trees' unsung melody
she sings warmth and love and gratitude as the baring trees signal the closing of her brief time.
Though her breathing's getting slow, she still savours each breath,
and, climbing a bough, she basks again in the autumn sun.

She knows that to weep over her butterfly lifespan would only waste her precious and beloved time –
so as her hair turns colour like dying leaves, she does not waste her breath.
She sings a treasured melody as the last of her life fades with the setting sun.