Bards-Hall Escapade #29
The path leads through an aisle of ancient oak trees, great tall giants that stoop to brush the earth with their heavy limbs. Their canopy spreads a dappled pattern of light and dark across the grasses, hazy in the early morning glow, lending a diffusion to the vision.
Sentance Challenge: The path led through an aisle of ancient oak trees
I pause beside one of the trees as I walk past and reach out to brush my hand against the rough bark, the massive trunk so great it would have taken five of me to encircle it. The wood is pitted and scored, the bark broken away in places, scarred remnants of past storms and weather. Tiny plants grow there, their roots sunk in the bark itself, feathery fronds lifted out to the gentle light. If I tilt my head back I can see more of them, gauzy patterns of mossy lace that drip from the gnarled branches to sway gently in the breeze.
My fingers trace the deep lines of the bark, finding a winding path around the girth, sloping slowly every upwards. I smile to myself, imagining the lives that might live there; the entirety of a tiny other world encompassed within the universe of bark and leaf and limb. faeries, Mata once said, laughing. She had pointed up to the bright flashes of light that danced and spun at dusk through the trees. The lights of faerie campfires, drifting on the evening winds, as the tiny creatures spun and danced in their celebrations.
I had been naught but a child, wide eyed and believing.
An adult, now, I know better. There are no faeries, no tiny folk living beneath bush and branch, winged or otherwise. There are only trees and insects and all of the things one sees every day and so dismisses.
But sometimes I still like to imagine.
I pat the rough bark, bidding silent farewell to the tree who slumbers now, bending beneath the gathering heat of the day. And if, as I turn away, I see the fleeting flutter of bright wings - well, it is only a butterfly, is it not?