Criatura of the Forest
She nestles her flesh and bone into the cool, soft, moss-covered trunk. A piano plays in her mind… dark, tranquil, delicate passages from the Arietta of Beethoven’s last piano sonata… everlasting melodies of deep and slowly passing water. Her eyes naturally turn towards the river and open sky. The ravishing beauty she witnesses in that moment, the violet smoke, the last remnants of day, is felt in her heart like a spark of effervescence that rises at once from her chest to her throat to the top of her head, wetting her eyes. Resonant joy.
Oh holy place. Her church.
When the light goes dim, enveloped by the sable ink of nightfall, she moves, an angel-creature fitting in and out of the shadows of the forest, like a shadow herself.
Over the treetops rises a crescent moon. The stars grow thicker and brighter behind the clouds. She slips through the towers of hardwoods, dancing into the mellow glow of night.
-Susan Tuttle
xx