2 posts tagged “kay neilsen”
They emerged from a dozen boudoirs; their rooms as sweet as sugar cubes, frosted with lace, dusted with petit point and iced with glass.
They had chosen carefully from tiny pots of scented rouge, arsenic powders and lip paints the colors of summer fruit: peach, plum, nectarine. The collections of chemical persuasions were patient as the undecided fingers hovered above them.
Patch boxes with pastel landscapes and encrusted jewels that startled delicate fingers were opened. The tiny shapes were whimsical communiques: stars to hang on the cheekbones of chaste galaxies; diamonds to draw attention to a curved mouth - an unattainable treasure; tears to convey a message of unrequited passion.
The princesses had taken off their tiaras of twisted gold and placed them on their dressing tables. Their crinoline petticoats bobbed underneath architectural skirts that were garlanded with ribbons, knotted with flowers and stifffened with trellis-works of ruched satin.
And then they left.
The forest met them at once; it would be a long, chilly walk. Branches draped against bare shoulders questioningly. "Stay - a question, please" they requested. Perhaps they wondered at the princesses' agile roots, clad in exotic slippers of silver and sapphire linen, and green silk with heels of crimson enamel.
Darkness fell upon them, but the princesses' joy was like a light and it dazzled the shadows. Their laughter rose into thte twilight and splintered into stars that glowed in the cobalt sky. So, out of gratitude, they received the evening's promise: that every twelve hours it would return to release them from the cares of the day and warm them with dreams, just as their laughter had warmed the night's cold heart.
I'm not a fan of Spring. It is armed with pastels and mildness, telling you to come on, get up and be happy. The sky is bright and non-committal. These are constant reminders to shake yourself out of your Winter depths and step into the new, sunny physicality.
But I have noticed something else about Spring - something that none of the other seasons possess. These four sisters have their own celebrations, temperatures, colors. They pulse with their own passions. And they take breaths that are peculiar to their own personalities. In Summer, the breeze is sluggish, over-heated: a thick furnace. Autumn's breeze is cool and earthy, a growth of harvests, weary trees and dying flowers. The breezes of winter are plumes of teeth, sharp and biting.
But in Spring, the breeze is light, free and high. I can imagine it curling in colored ribbons around the tops of trees and the spinning shapes of weather vanes: ships, gulls, bi-planes...impudently speeding them on. These breezes are not weighed down with heat; they don't come from the uprooted earth; they are not bitter, spreading from icy jaws. They run above my reach, distant, and my thoughts can't help but give chase.
They don't come from my city. They haven't escaped from the gutters, stinking and unhealthy. They're not born from exhaust pipes or chimneys, heavy with soot - rancid with industry and a careless population.
I've always thought they they came from somewhere far beyond - beyond imagination, skipping past common sense, perfumed Zephyrs arriving from somewhere outside the mind's everyday considerations. I think they've returned from somewhere afar, bearing gifts and stories from faraway places.
They could have arrived from fluttering a castle's pennant, coming to me still holding the scent of its mossy walls. They could have just finished cooling the brows of grazing deer, calming their doe-eyed flightiness. Or perhaps they come to me after skimming over the surface of a foreign ocean, carrying to me froth, salt, the memories of glittering fish and scarred dolphins. Maybe they have returned from diving through fields of tall, fragrant grass, holding the microscopic seeds of future acres. Or have they come back from holding aloft an eagle hunting above a distant land, balancing each pinion on a cushion of air...and perhaps they are bringing back a dappled feather for me.
Did these breezes hear distant music - could they carry to me the ethereal strings, the pretty notes - and when they see me let a symphony settle gently on my shoulders? Did it travel by night - was it cooled by the stars? Did it dazzle the flowers - so that they couldn't help but ride along?
How far and wide does a Spring breeze roam? So vastly, so boldly, that only a dream can grab hold to it.
