Drifting by My Window.

Although it would be largely inaccurate to label her a simple dreamer, most of what interests Jenny takes place in the skies above her head.

 

It’s true that at this moment she is enjoying the improvised melodies of Autumn Leaves, woven together by a quartet of musicians sitting on the wet cobbles in front of the café, but her attention is captured by the whiteness of the clouds drifting across the startling blue of the heavens.

 

Yesterday, as she walked through the forest to the lost and hidden spring where wild animals drink, a storm of birds soared out of the trees and twisted and turned in a sweep of wings that sounded like water rushing over her.

 

Submerged in their flow, she marvelled as they tumbled and whirled across the dusk where the birds were joined by others equally effervescent in altitude.

 

“Heavens above, earth below,” she whispered to herself, wondering where she had first heard someone say that.

 

She risked a look at the earth, making sure not to stumble on root or briar, but her eyes resisted and flew along with the wings.

 

She felt dizzy from the effort.

 

And from the joy.

 

“If I had wings, and I could fly…” her voice trailed away into the fiery sunset settling in the west.

 

She had turned then, returning to the house.

 

Reluctant, she hesitated by the open door and looked at the half full, half empty moon.

 

“Perspective matters,” she offered the words upwards hoping there was something, someone perhaps, looking down ready to receive their wisdom.......

 

Today in the market she stands, ready once again to turn homeward, when a sudden gust of wind lifts hundreds of leaves from the outstretched branches of the only tree in the square and she is all at once covered by an autumnal cascade.

 

“Autumn leaves, of red and gold,” she sings. 

 

“Dans la nuit froide de l’oubli,” she finishes.

 

And closes her eyes, letting the leaves carry her skyward.