Making Magic

Dedication

Dedication

To Holly, who always says “You can do this”

The Kindling

Long ago, the people called her by many names and bent their heads in the mountains and caverns to listen reverently to her words,

And She sang.

It was then that stars came down to perch in her hair and listen while the people danced gently on her hills and the old magic whispered through her valleys,

And She laughed.

But the people turned away and made for themselves counterfeit canyons filled with illusions and discordant echoes of the music they had once known,

And She is silent.

Until her cities of ice are melted and the oceans stripped of her bounty.

Until blackness from her bowels chokes the sky and her singing masons build no more.

Until the healing dark is banished and her flashing crown extinguished.

Until creation itself is mocked and the mimicry turns on its makers.

Until they eat her mountains and toss the bones in her valleys.

Until they walk on the sky and turn to see Her blue sphere entire.

Then will a girl-child wake the old magic once more, when the need is dire,

And those who are burdened will be kindled.

Then her people will learn again to hear her voice,

And She will sing.

For a single firefly cannot subdue the darkness

But thousands can k****e magic.