A summer’s day, and a cool breeze
billowing the sails visible now
on the distant horizon, silent
and swift, a reminder, perhaps,
of a time of commerce and leisure,
the trade winds of another era,
another time, gone now, but
for a small instant, an instance
celebrated, relived in a collective
memory
of time and yearning and pageantry,
the spirit of the sea uplifted.
Before Disney, there was no Merida,
no fairy tale,
no myth, no folklore, just Scotland
and its own legends,
monsters and unicorns,
shapeshifters, the wee-folk, witches,
and the willow-o’-the wisps luring
us off our course;
but there was a mother and a
strong-willed daughter,
argumentative, vying for power,
clashing
with tradition, desiring her independence.
And so,
Merida was born, dropped into
Scotland, DunBroch,
refusing to marry the prince who
would win her hand,
arrows shot, the best marksman
winning, she besting
them all in this Disney tale of
breaking with convention,
no prince to rescue her, for she
must rescue herself, setting free
her mother, too – trapped inside
herself – from the bear she had become:
a new princess, a modern princess,
breaking the mold
set by Cinderella, Snow White, and
Sleeping Beauty, rescued,
a modern woman, bravely, now, setting
herself free.
In a river town, we, too, are
carried by the currents,
strong currents coursing to the
sea, wending their way
from the mountains through inland
towns, great fields,
and large tracts of forests perhaps
uninhabited,
perhaps unexplored, an expanse of
fir and pine
and oak and elm, birch and poplar,
green to gold,
to rejoin the oceans, vast and powerful,
a great unknown,
a destination fated somehow,
inescapable, a joining,
a resting place we seek to return
to,
and we, in a river town, are
called, pulled
by the currents of that river
running through us,
currents carrying us to the sea,
currents carrying us home.
We are all gardens:
Bright flowers blossoming ‘midst
a sea of green leaves;
fertile soils feed us,
hold us firm, deeply rooted,
fenced against the wind;
the summer rains come,
soft droplets gently falling,
a cleansing, made pure;
Beauty, hidden in
earth, budding outward, to bloom,
to blossom, restored.
We are all gardens:
Bright flowers, deeply rooted,
cleansed, restored, renewed.
