Once, there was a place,
a long time ago,
where the sun still shines
like it hasn't shone before and
where the stones sometimes laugh
as if they've only just discovered
the earth while the cattails pretend
they are bulrushes and bulrushes
play hide-and-seek with the
cattails outside on a bright
summer's day.
And in that place, where starlight
runs like a river and colors
waltz between the trees, where
daffodils wave at passing clouds
and the ocean's waters taste
sweet to the touch, there was
a girl who used to find pebbles
on the shore of the sea and
paint them with the morning dew.
She would rise with the sun
and fly among the clouds, and
she would laugh with the stones
and play with the rushes and
the colors taught her how to dance.
At night she would bathe in the
starlight and wrap herself in a blanket
of fog before falling asleep to the sound
of the pebbles in her pocket saying,
"wish, wish, wish."
And far away, there was a wish,
a wish of a man who had never
seen cattails or fallen asleep beneath
a foggy blanket or found a place
where daffodils still grow.
So one day he got onto his feet
and started walking wherever they
might lead, and wouldn't you know
it, but that young man stumbled across
a mountainside where he ran into
a girl looking out across the way
and they both went tumbling and rolling
down the valley until they landed with
a snap in a pool filled with spring.
And the boy had only just gotten to his
feet and held out his hand to help the
girl up when he realized that his stuttered
apology had turned into a bird, which
the girl took from his outstretched hand
and threw into the air, and it flew away
to the mountaintop where snow was falling
like wisps of cotton candy and turning
into toadstools just as it hit the ground.
The girl took him by the hand and led him up
the starlight stream to where he could feel
the sun across his face even while the
clouds were racing in the sky above,
and he learned how to laugh with the
stones and play with the rushes, and
the colors taught him how to dance together.
And after a time, the two of them took the
pebbles they had painted with the morning
dew and set out for the mountain where
the girl had first wished for a dancing
partner and where the toadstools smelled like
freshly fallen snow, and they took those
pebbles and they threw them, one
by one, farther and farther until
they couldn't reach any more, and
then they ran down the mountain to
that pool filled with spring and climbed
onto their raft and sailed down the
river of starlight and out over the
ocean where the waters taste sweet to
the touch, because they knew that
there was something waiting to be
found over the horizon.
So if, one day, you ever find
that place, where the sun still shines
like it hasn't shone before and where
the stones sometimes laugh as if they've
only just discovered the earth while
the cattails pretend they are bulrushes
and the bulrushes play hide-and-seek
with the cattails outside on a
bright summer's day, let me know,
and we'll go there, you and
I, and we'll rise with the sun and
fly among the clouds, and we'll laugh
with the stones and play with the
rushes, and maybe, the colors will
teach us how to dance.
