Dear Ms. Rice,
The honeybees are here now giving the clover a working over, which makes right touchy work of the cutting and threshing, verily so with this lethal allergy to venom and aversion to being stung. But that’s okay, according to my fencing instructor, because we’re presently working on footwork and precision. We didn’t touch a one, those busy bees——Have you ever seen, so close up, a stinger stuck deep in the eye’s periphery while the sac still pumps? I have! Pump-pump-pump-pump, goes the little heart with a hook. Poor little bee, dead and still working while I go to sleep. The doctors asked where I’d been when I finally woke up. Everywhere, I said. But then again, that was when we were still wholly fractured and seeing stars as tiny shiny pieces of Us pearled away somewhere safe in a place leafier than here… I saw you lean in and heard what you said, even though I wasn’t supposed to; I thought I heard a breathy verse but here I’d merely run out of air and taken a nap in the Earth——, their legs laden with all the life their flower petal wings could carry, so we left a swath of clover standing since they seem to love it so much.
Which reminds me, before I ramble, Thank You so much for your wonderful cuttings and the seedy guts. You yield to dead leaves with such grace, Ms. Rice, and reluctance or not, you have that serrated sorta je ne sai quoi that cannot be taught. What a joy to receive such a wickedly wonderful missive! Such a letter will always be prized. I have a special place for such prose and I may whittle a line or a stanza out of it one day to pen poem about natural beauty and innate kindness, or perhaps a passage about slinging unsanctioned ink at the resurrection of rabbits when it’s the right thing to do. I planted them right away, the seeds. I couldn’t wait, it’s the tail-end of the sowing season. I put them under the trellis by the creaky red gate, just in case.
Not one for mincing, my mom shook a finger at me as well with her reminder about wasting too many seeds, which I would never do, on resurrecting rabbits. But I’ve always thought that the tender and the small are precisely why we do it so I’d sometimes riposte with a crooked look because she knew that I knew that she knew it; that that’s why she did it too. I mean, it seemed to me, at least, standing there before her, to be self-evident. So don’t be surprised if a rabbit hops by to say Thank You for your tender words and your kindness. It’s the least I could do, a dumpster is no place for the small and the tender to sleep, not even for a night. And besides, what other way is there to be? I’d always thought that being tender and being small were prerequisite to the masters course in being mighty. Like you. Thank you and your mom, too, for the timely tip. I’m just now getting down to the bone and what to do with it. I’ve only ever used poetry to cuss or reverse-engineer this static language, there’s gotta be a way to make it move somehow, looking for words with wings that fit their silvertine things on the fly, and yet I can’t stick it with these static skins and lines, the wings don’t work, it just sits there, no smoke, and dies, and now I look up from my broken watch, suddenly with so much space to cover, and I’m afraid that I’m going to have to learn how to build, possibly from scratch. I’m building something faster now. So I will saw, slowly. But the maintenance! I’ve never properly learned to sharpen a saw. Surely it glides through skin and bone, but with so many edges to hone, how do you keep your serrated knife so sharp, Ms. Rice? Is there a magic whetstone? Or is it really done with a file? How many bookmarks do you own?
And of course I would never tattle. I write on them once in a while, sure, but I don’t talk to walls. I’m happy to return the kindness, so don’t mention it. We’d dealt with bigger bullies than Benny before——but don’t glass smiles make your knuckles itch like a fistful of reddening Stone Roses?——and you didn’t tattle. You listen, Ms. Rice, and you wouldn’t tell a soul, save one; and whose would a rabbit’s tell anyhow? I remember, “Someone opened them up…,” is what you said to save us. You covered me when we stood before Mr. Painter and his hardwood paddle and his demand to know who shattered the boys bathroom mirrors and opened its windows. You didn’t tattle when that murderous eighth-grade Goliath named David and his three shadows trapped me in that ceramic room and leaned on my neck a bit too long for my liking. But he didn’t know there was a little martyr hiding, her feet up in a stall, ear to the wa11, keeping score next door in the girls’ bathroom. He didn’t know how well I’d learned to hold my breath. He didn’t know whose neck he was about to snap. What was I supposed to do? His forearm was bigger than my neck and his wristband smelled like cigarettes, gym locker, and the meatloaf from lunch. And me without a pencil. I was running out of air. They didn’t know the peril they were in, trapping me in a hard room with so many chromed corners and sharp edges. You know how bullies fold when the numbers turn even a little; you know what a mess bullies can make when you turn them inside out. All those boys would be dead right now, completely unaware they’d raised Symwynn’s ire. I don’t talk to the Dragons, I talked to a Dragon, and only to ask Her to stay out. You know how Mothers can be. You’ve seen a shadow on a spark, imagine them on fire! She would have burned that place down. I only spoke to keep Her from splattering them all on the tiled walls. How would I ever explain that one to Mr. Painter? You said Someone so I didn’t have to explain myself while I caught my breath and sucked my bloody lip. And it was still the truth even if only you, I, and the paddle heard it. They could have tried to snuff you too! How his sentinels missed you I’ll never know but I’d venture a spell. Had We not been Everywhere and Elsewhere before, I’da thought you the bravest kid I’d ever met right then and there. Symwynn sends Her regards and eternal gratitude. But I’m still gathering all the right words for that story and bullies are a waste of ink, especially on a Friday. So maybe next time I can tell you about an angel named Jerry and how he became a dragonfly in sixth grade.
Oh, I almost forgot: It’s a trick of light, I think, a convenient little quirk in the way I move. I learned to toddle first like everyone else but my grandmother taught me to sprint with scissors before I could run. She kept a tidy rose garden. I may not be as still as I let on. I’m just deceptively slow, like lightning in the mountains. If you ever saw me sitting so still and stolid, I was probably just gathering or listening or awaiting new orders. Usually, even I don’t know where I’ll strike next.
Look at the Time. I should go and keep this tome under two ounces, the postage is bleeding Us dry. If your letter, Ms. Rice, has landed in my hands by some error of The Post, perhaps pointed to another Mr. Lorcan in a hat, then never mind, please forgive my wayward rambling and disregard. But thank you just the same. I was getting stiff and that was a good stretch. I still have to make it rain tonight and eat Cake so I think I’ll get the scissors out now and go for a run.
Sincerely,
PSL
PS – It’s okay to cry. I do it all the time. If you ever find yourself in a place that forgets what joy looks like just keep a knife and an onion handy and you’ll never have to explain yourself.
PPS – I know it may be presumptuous of me to ask, even in postscriptum, but May I address you in the familiar if only just once? Musie and the wind always remind me not to presume anything but I’d imagine that Fiona better suits you. I’m not saying that I talk to The Dragons but if I did I would say they definitely have an affinity for the way Fiona feels at home on the fangs and moves so beautifully through their tender smoke.
Photo by Ali Bakhtiari on Unsplash