I was a child of the desert, the brown tinge of the sand my toes, the pockets of deep dark green springing from the earth, slivering up from the water that would wash through the rocks, lines over lines mimicking time my skin, but my soul was bound in the rock. The rock that was painted as if with a brush, burnt sienna gracing the pockets of holes that would peak in and out of its hardened flesh. The waves of white that would glaze the edges, making it look like molten hot lava that finally settled into flame. I found my place there, or so I thought.
Now I am brightly colored wildflowers knitted into a gown, queen of the fairies with a crown made of leaves that bleed with intensity, shifting from neon green to ruby. My legs are the water that shouldn’t break at the surface, foam hitting the shore as people ride the waves of a glacier. The stars above that twinkle in a sky I never thought could be so purple, peeking behind clouds and fog, that unfamiliar zig zag of gray, a veil over a city that isn’t sure what it is, are my eyes coyly looking away.
In the desert, there’s a beauty that isn’t obvious. You have to really look to find what you are looking for, buried beneath winds that cover secrets. Burnt purple-red fields will line a patch of dirt, once where the water ran deepest. In the valley, you turn to the left and you see rolling hills and a river that sings to you of all it has seen and will be.
There was a storm, another that graced the too blue skies of my home, that forced me to no longer be what I was, only what I have always been and will continue to be. The three sisters, the mother, the maiden, and the crone dance on their spindle in my mind’s eye to tell me what they see. Do you lean in with me to hear their story?