Beltane.
She giggles, but it is no high belling sound of glee. Her low laugh is rich with expectation, a full-throated murmuring sound that delights in revealed mystery. It is a private sound meant for him alone, there in their shadowed bower of clover and hanging branch, and it awakens an answering grin in him who hears it.
The space between the trees is filled with flashing wings, as birds in bright colors dart everywhere, posturing and busy and loud, a mismatched, enlivening chorus. The tall grasses hide silent, soft rabbits nibbling on wild onions, and in the branches above them are squirrels feasting on seeds. The clouds moving across the blue sky echo the white dazzling drifts of hawthorn highlighting the greenwood.
Beauty is abundant; every nuanced leaf is balanced by a bright petal, every shadow harmonized by the hue of a distant hill. Every piece is fitted together so seamlessly, so harmoniously, that the couple felt a rising tension just in walking through the perfection of it. Every harmony played a sweet song on nerve and filled the heart with anticipatory heat, until even the fragrance of orange blossom made her breath beat in her throat, and the cry of the hawk sent a delicious shock through his center to his core.
But all of this is now seen and unseen, a backdrop for the different magic they have found. The riddles of the earlier season have given way to the unknown territory of the other; the dance they partner each other in now is the dance of skin against skin. Her sun-scented arm winds around his torso and pulls him close, and his mouth touches her brow, her eyes, her cheek in fleeting tasting kisses before meeting her lips in a homecoming. There is only scent and sound and sensation, and the two who were one are now one again.
Every barrier is gone, and every secret shared. What greenwood and blossom promised, they accepted, and in their pleasure they found a new bounty, an inheritance of joy. There is no longer room for fear, no longer a heart standing alone, for in their trust they have unlocked the door to beauty, and now his laughter is on her lips and her overflowing heart is in his breast.
In daylight and in darkness they can walk with freedom, for the secret has been discovered, and the mystery revealed. There can be no communion in the barricaded heart.
The space between the trees is filled with flashing wings, as birds in bright colors dart everywhere, posturing and busy and loud, a mismatched, enlivening chorus. The tall grasses hide silent, soft rabbits nibbling on wild onions, and in the branches above them are squirrels feasting on seeds. The clouds moving across the blue sky echo the white dazzling drifts of hawthorn highlighting the greenwood.
Beauty is abundant; every nuanced leaf is balanced by a bright petal, every shadow harmonized by the hue of a distant hill. Every piece is fitted together so seamlessly, so harmoniously, that the couple felt a rising tension just in walking through the perfection of it. Every harmony played a sweet song on nerve and filled the heart with anticipatory heat, until even the fragrance of orange blossom made her breath beat in her throat, and the cry of the hawk sent a delicious shock through his center to his core.
But all of this is now seen and unseen, a backdrop for the different magic they have found. The riddles of the earlier season have given way to the unknown territory of the other; the dance they partner each other in now is the dance of skin against skin. Her sun-scented arm winds around his torso and pulls him close, and his mouth touches her brow, her eyes, her cheek in fleeting tasting kisses before meeting her lips in a homecoming. There is only scent and sound and sensation, and the two who were one are now one again.
Every barrier is gone, and every secret shared. What greenwood and blossom promised, they accepted, and in their pleasure they found a new bounty, an inheritance of joy. There is no longer room for fear, no longer a heart standing alone, for in their trust they have unlocked the door to beauty, and now his laughter is on her lips and her overflowing heart is in his breast.
In daylight and in darkness they can walk with freedom, for the secret has been discovered, and the mystery revealed. There can be no communion in the barricaded heart.