The Fiddlehead Song

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

The voice rose like musty fragrance,

from leaf-littered substrate to my ear.

“Do you love me?”

I stooped low.

“Do you love me?”

inquired harlequin green fern

in fiddlehead curl and tuck.

“Of course I do,”

I replied.

“Then, please sing me a song.”

I balked.

Here the delicate melodings of thrushes

disarm choirs of angels

hand-selected by the gods.

I could offer nothing better than an

off-pitched Corvid grok.

On a good day.

“I can gift you some water,

or how about my favorite ring?”

I was hopeful.

“Sing me a song.”

My hopes were dashed.

So I sat there at trailside for 36 straight hours,

nervously relocating last Autumn’s acorns among piles.

How to honor, not insult?

I mused and agonized

as sunlight and moonlight

took turns wandering through the nascent woods.

And then a cool breeze stirred

the understory and me.

“It’s all about intent,”

came the re-minder from my

exasperated mystic pal

on a higher mountain far away.

“Intento!”

Indeed.

I sighed and giggled at

my human folly.

And then I claimed

who I am.

Fire ignited deep within my belly cauldron,

causing feisty cleansing steams

to rise within

and purify.

Dews burning off at dawn

serve the forest similarly,

perhaps.

And so, with great intent, I sang:

“I love you…”

to the harlequin fiddlehead,

alas,

my voice every bit as

unabashedly wretched as I’d feared.

Alas.

But before I could offer up an apology

worthy of such outlandish disgrace,

the Osmundia fern replied:

“That’s the most beautiful

thing I’ve ever heard,”

and unfurled.

(c) 2011-2014/Jamie K. Reaser
Published in "Sacred Reciprocity: Courting the Beloved in Everyday Life." (www.hiraethpress.com)