Lessons From the Baba Yaga

It was never my intention to wander away from the road that you have so kindly paved for me. I simply wanted to smell the roses.

And then my eye caught sight of some beautiful wildflowers. Was it my fault that they grew so deep in the field away from your watchful eye? I picked what ones I could; the roses may smell so sweet, but wildflowers are much more potent to the gypsy heart. I plucked one and made a ring of it for my sweetheart. If only I had a sweetheart, that is. Surely someone, somewhere, is wanting a wreath for their finger. (And for whom I shall gladly supply!)

I kept thinking all the while, how nice it would be to not know the difference between dreaming and awake. The way that small children do not know that the difference: it is all the same to them.

How nice would it be, if...
I am close now to the grove of trees that make the forest. Far down from the lane where you stand. Your hand held horizontally against the vertical sun to block out the shine. Those green-blue fervent eyes looking rampantly around for my familiar face that has gone wondering. You call out my name, although I do not hear you, I know that that is exactly what you are doing. I do not want to come back for fear of being scolded for wandering off. Although I would love you tell you, that had I not ventured as far as I have, I would have never found you a ring.

He loves me, He loves me not,...
I leave a trail of petal breadcrumbs for any who dare to follow. My feet echo my thoughts as they trail on from high grass to pinestraw forest floor. I do not know you anymore. My mind is somewhere else, in the meditation that comes with solace. Deep into the woods now, I hear the caw of a crow. It is now that I take notice of where I have led myself to. Here is where I see your cottage. So quiet, alone, and brooding. Behind its doors I know are answers. Answers that I know I need, but somehow do not want and am afraid to achieve. Asking questions requires daring risk.

I do not let my reasoning mind get the better of me, but allow the curiosity of an inward child peak thru my eyes. The wooden door gives way under my slight touch, my eyes adjust to the darkness, and there you are: Haggard, dusty, draped with age and bitterness, and cloaked in crooked grin. You let me in.

I sort for you the grains of your youth as you weave together stories for my young and maliable mind to feed on. Your bent cane resembles the back of the one that it carries. You do not so much as walk as scuffle across your pine floors that perhaps once were dainty. As you may have once been.

I come to wonder how one comes to live this life. Where herbs are hung upside down to try, and hang from the beams like faeries asleep. You tell me that it was not the life you had intended to live. You were different. You saw more than they saw. The colors to you were always more vibrant. The glory you saw in all things, others were blind to see. Somehow, they managed to shun you. To keep you hidden and unloved. And you let yourself believe them when they said that you were not enough. Eventually you sought solace in the only place that offered it: in the deep, deep, hollow. (Where Angels fear to tread.) Every now and then you would have a visitor. Usually a young girl, not unlike myself you say. You would teach her the ancient and graceful ways of protecting herself from the very ones that turned you away. And now you would teach me the same.

Today I have come to learn from you, and hope against hope, that even as great as you are...I do not end up like you.