The Playful Garden

If you wander you may not be lost

If you wander you may find beauty

If you wander you may find peace

If you wonder where the nature lies

If you wander you may find the fallen tree

On this tree the Sun Spirit dances, dressed in gold and dazzling refractions of the sun

The Tree Spirit sits beside her, clothed in muted green and brown

Both reminisce of times spent but lost and enchant each other's playground minds with their own words

They play and fraternise joyously in the awesome garden forest they have constructed

The Sun Spirit tells the Tree Spirit she has a gift for him and produces a wand, steadily crafted from a curved branch given by the fallen tree

She tells the Tree Spirit this wand will give him domain over the forest and it's powers, so he may bring celebration and prosperity for time to come

The Tree Spirit laughs at the sun spirit, gripping at his sides he tells her he already had domain over the forest and that, when the flowers bloom and blossom and fall it is he who demands the forest to do so

The Sun Spirit looks upon the Tree Spirit as a mother would her child, knowingly but cautiously. The Sun Spirit tells the tree spirit that these happenings in the forest were of her hand. It is now that she is passing the duty over to the Tree Spirit, so he may truly see over the forest as his own

She tells him this flashing her pale eyes and a wry smile

Rather than gratitude, the Sun Spirit is responded to with a fiery disdain

The Tree Spirit assures her that he has domain over this forest, he reaches out his hand towards the grass to prove to her he can coerce the flowers to grow

But his straining fingers cannot summon the petals from their buds, and his concentrated thoughts do not compel the canopy to shiver

He swears the Sun Spirit has taken his power and replaced his authority with a wand of bark

The Sun Spirit backs away as the Tree Spirit rages at her, his duties as guardian of this sacred garden have, in his eyes, been violated and stripped, not only from himself but from the very order of things that are

He leaves the wand in a puddle by the fallen tree, retreating into the darkness of the forest where the Sun Spirit cannot follow him,

He mournfully wallows among the twisted brambles of the undergrowth, condemning the Sun Spirit and her wicked deeds, her false authority over this nature

The Tree Spirit lays his head down and rejects to acknowledge the trees withering without his presence

The creatures of the forest suffer as the trees bear no fruit and the flowers do not bloom when the solstice arrives

The trees become hollow within and peel bark that falls into bogs that creep from the undergrowth, drowning the smaller plants

As the forest closes in the Tree Spirit shivers and shuts his eyes, squeezing out cold tears

The forest is reduced to the few twisted branches that perversely extrude from black trunks, surrounding the wallowing Tree Spirit, laying himself in a puddle of moonlit tears

Spite will kill your garden