SONG

By Laura Lyons

         The wrath of the mortal gods had come.

         The living, fanged castles that the gods had made of old war blades moved along the ground like armoured snakes, feasting on the blood of the ancient dead and sucking up everything in their paths like firerock, and the trees knew that they had sinned.

        The wrath of the mortal gods had come and all was desolate.

        The sky had wept to see such a day of judgement and all was mud and wet.  A hollow had become a pool where huddled the last of the broken and dying green.  The earth, which had borne all without a word, now gave voice to a long and mighty sigh like the sound of one who is paralysed to hide his nakedness.  The echoes of it rolled across what was left of the hills like so many messengers seeking succour.

       It slowly died away and all was then quiet as the grave.

       Then, ever-so-small, came a stirring and a birthing at the edge of the pool as a chorus of white frogs, smooth as peeled twigs and bright as hope, emerged from the muck.  Eyes glittering golden-blue, they began singing-- a low, harmonious cacophony of croaking like the chanting of so many Hindu monks.  It continued, with nary a stop for breath, until all the world around was lost within it.

      It continued, unbroken, until a single, vivid leaf, bursting with life, spiralled down from the clouds to plaster itself against the nose of the nearest frog.  He paused only long enough to remove it, then resumed his song.  But now, leaf by leaf, they came-- one leaf became two became five became ten became a downpour of leaves of all descriptions-- every tree represented which had lost its life to the gods.  They blanketed the ground with promise until the downpour became ten became five became two became one single leaf, which seemed cut from living jade.

     When it came gently to rest upon the top of a small mound, the frogs, as one, ceased their singing.

     The earth bathed itself in the healing, holy silence for a timeless moment.  Then, as it felt the pulse of life return, it began, deep in its bowels, a hum too low for the ear.  The frogs felt it and, as one, leaped into the pool and disappeared.  They knew what was coming, for they had sung it, called it, prayed for it as only a white frog can.

      Then there came a great rustling and a shuffling, a pushing up, up, up to the light to breathe and to be born.  For the leaves were from Heaven, itself, from the very shores of Paradise, grown in the Garden of Delights-- leaves from trees that had heard the frogs' pleading song and answered it-- for who, indeed, could be deaf to the cries of such a sacred creature?  As if ignorant that they should be subject to the laws of green, saplings as far as the eyes could see pushed their way from the blanket of shining leaves to stretch forth their limbs to the God of the gods, begging blessing like hungry puppies.  Love could hold Himself back no longer, but rained Himself down in shafts of sunlight-- columns of almost liquid warm-- so that the new babes might feed and grow.

     And grow, they did:  as at Creation, they transcended centuries in minutes, swelling upward and outward to replace the forest completely in the time it had taken to destroy it.

       When all was again still, the feathered and furred, smooth-skinned and many-legged children came from their hiding in the outer wilds to celebrate.