August Visitor
Albi
Copyright 2000
The fairy was just there
sitting on one of the milkweed leaves.
He'd expected a chrysalis
circled with impossibly gold dots in rings
or a green striped caterpillar
resting between munching
on the same green leaves,
but saw a little female figure
with shimmering blue-green skin
and translucent gossamer wings
folded down her back
and to one side.
"Gossamer"
The word permeated his mind
which seemed a strange time
for it to happen,
but not many things, in this world,
were "gossamer"
except
spider webs
on the tops of hedges
jeweled with morning dew
at every thread intersection
or the wings of a dragon fly
as it clings on its perch
in the summer sun.
But he focused again,
and the fairy wasn't a dragon fly.
Suddenly she realized she was being watched.
A subtle tension waved across her body
and her wings stiffened very slightly.
Yet the sadness could be seen
beneath the fear
that took over her face.
So he didn't budge a muscle
save in his eyes
which twinkled.
She gazed back,
took a long slow breath,
then simultaneously
she melted into a smile
that passed a glimmer behind his.
This moment stretched for one tick of the sun.
Then, suddenly, she was gone
leaving him one bouncing leaf
in the still day
and a fragment of a memory
that he might have seen her launch
up
and then away.