Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Phoebe

Sister, you never told me you had become wise;

You never told me.

But indeed--the wealth of knowledge hidden in your little chest could never be communicated.
The way by which a girl becomes a woman is too mysterious--how could you speak it to me except with your eyes and the shape or content of your hands?

How did you learn to pat a person's arm when they speak embarrassment to you; how did you learn to create whatever you wanted with a needle, brush, pen? And that, that twist of your head to the side, bright like a promise, is such a vast piece of wonder in itself-- but you have learned it without a lesson.

When did you totally unlock the secret that the ancients have been unable to discover--the secret of loving the humans? This is not a girl's business, and yet, you are not a girl.

So let your curls conspire to draw every person who might learn from you, now that you are a woman; any art that the Designer might use to spread Himself around is worth the means... and in your case, the means are many. I don't mind that you are a nymph, that you are a dryad, that you are a bird who has become dangerous by means of knowledge. You have somehow come to embody beauty without fully knowing it yourself, and it came quietly from behind; we are all of us ambushed by what your time with the Lord has made you.

It was Him, wasn't it? How else could you have grown up with so little blight to your person? Few potted plants are so straight and true... you can see the others, can't you? Other girl-plants grow nearby, with loud, harsh voices, with constant mournings, with crushing insecurities leading to demonaic manipulations, and eyes that skirt around yours, with miniature clothing, with nothing to say and no energy to say it. I was a plant so blighted, and there is no way of blaming the sun or the seasoning in the soil or the hands that put me in there, or even the desert that they left me in...

All I can say truly is that I was not what I ought to have been, and it is a joy like searing rain to see that you are.

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