“If I could say it, I wouldn’t have to dance it.” (Quote from a dancer)
It could be two children, or two old friends, but in Glengruelly it is the Fairy King and Queen who come together to dance.
When the changing time is overdue, only then do they sail through the icicles and snow.
Long after the golden time, the time when mornings meander and afternoons rest on full bellies and the country glows like a fireside.
Long after the glowing time when the country grows red and redder, as red as an apple. The time when even withering is beautiful.
Then the winter comes and the sky howls and sparkles. Soon the earth freezes and the elves have to hop about to keep warm. The valley nestles into a deep indigo blue and the waters thicken.
The fairies know this as the changing time. It is the time to lay fallow. It is the time to rest. It is the time to count blessings and dream dreams for it will be dreams that start the call for the dance.
The Fairy King hears it first. The sweet sound of tomorrow, the whisper of a perhaps that will soon be a possibility. It is a sound that he feels as much as hears. He waits for its deep, gentle stirring. It is like a tinkling of laughter. When he hears the whisper like a smattering of a smile he knows that now is the time to walk into the deep heart of the forest. There he will see her, his Fairy Queen, she will be dressed in a gown made of dragonfly wings that shine and glisten like a gentle breeze across a frosted window.
No-one knows how it starts to happen. Each year they try to see it but each year they must be distracted or busy dancing but goodness, there it is again and still no-one saw how or when but a clearing has formed around them that is starting to shine and glisten too. Is it happiness? Is it joy? There is a touch on their heart and a swing in their step. They look and smile deep pools of warmth into the other that spread out like waves around them, glistening. It is winter, it is the changing time, everything is frozen and soon the pool spreading around them has filled the whole clearing and is slowing and thickening and crystallizing into a forest floor that shines and glitters like a ice.
The Fairy King and Queen are flying and twirling about on the ice and all about in the air. They fly outside of themselves. Their emotions sprout wings that take them high, high up and away. It is not a moment to think, it is a dance of feeling and soaring and melting. Anyone who sees it knows that this is something more than beautiful, something special and rare and life-giving. The whole forest starts sparkling like a diamond. Then it starts glowing, the diamond starts to shift and flow as the soaring gets stronger and stronger, its irresistible rhythm beckoning everything to start dancing too, dancing and soaring and melting.
This is the moment that turns the world around.
This is the seed, the sparkle that like sunlight begs the plants to grow until there is green everywhere, green buds, green leaves, green magic, green, green, green.
Little green,
Sprightly green,
Budding green,
Oh green oh green.
