The Mighty Oak

This woman of a road, she's hard and dusty. Men lose themselves on her winding, feminine curves. The few men who find her, guided by the instinct of a drunk mind, they understand her beauty, her magic.  And she understands their restless wanderings. A fellow will kiss her muddied face, and she'll whisper a story through his open windows. She will lead him on.

The story is never the same. 

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The oak, he calls himself Mighty.  He is tall and old and knows many things. He can interpret the call of birds, communicate with the grass. He loves the stars. Nightly, when the sun drifts below the green-line, deep echoing songs rise from his roots in a loving serenade as their tiny bright faces surface from the black. When shivering fireflies dip through branched fingers, he always whispers that they are the most beautiful creature because they carry starlight in their bellies. Yet, always so urgent, the fireflies do not listen to his affections and die believing themselves ugly and lost. 

The life inside and around the oak swims with his song. The world interprets itself by him, and he is the center of the universe. 

Winter is lonely, brittle death. Leaves die. Squirrels die. Birds die. Green shades her eyes and Brown tips her face upward.

It was against this seasons' macabre canvas that Mighty, stripped and gray-faced, found his bright Love.

She arrived as a bell-like voice, drifting into the space above his head. She arrived and he mistook her for Spring. But she sang of lonliness, vast and infinite. Darkness. She sang a winter-song that perfectly mirrored his own. He lifted his face to the blackness above and saw her blue-flamed form. She was a star. He was struck.

Time clenched and sighed. Silence.

With the ferocity of rushing water, Mighty raised his voice in epic reply. He sang out his empathy, needing her to feel the comfort and warmth of companionship. More than anything, he needed her to hear him. His song shook the earth. A steady ribbon of wind tangled itself through the roaring, urgent lyrics, shooting them toward the heavens.

Time heaved against the torrential waves of destiny. Then silence.

A shy bell-chime raindrop dripped and dropped through Mighty's branches, breaking the quiet. It was her response, timid yet filled with the excitment of a lightning. She asked for his name.

Mighty! Mighty! I am Mighty! And you are beautiful and perfect, my shining Love! I am strong and my branches extend above the faces of all! I am Mighty and you are radiant. I protect and bring shade to the small things, I am filled with life-giving water, I am your oak and you are my Star. Come to me, here upon the face the world, come to me, you small, perfect thing, and I will keep you warm and safe in my branches. Come to me, and you will not be lonely any more!

A dragon-cloud swooped across the sky and for an instant his Star was not visible. Mighty prayed.

A blink of light. A streak of light. A falling light. The Star lifted her molten arms in beautiful surrender and dropped from her celestial home. Creation screamed, burned by the force of her descent.

Down.
Down.
Closer.
Closer.

Her body tore away from itself leaving a streak of blinding residue behind. She burned brighter, hotter, faster. She grew and shrank, a convulsing heart. Sharp claws ripped away flesh, smothered her breath. Smaller and smaller and smaller she became, but her resolve never faultered. She flew into the arms of Earth and collapsed, hard and raw, directly beside the trunk of Mighty.

Mighty stared down at her now-tiny form, her dimming light, and wept.

She looked up at him and sighed a final flickering lyric.... You are Mighty.

The End.