Monarchs of the Moonflower
All that is gold does not glitter; all that wanders is not lost.
In every garden lives a keeper of stories, and sometimes, if the wind is kind, travelers stop to tell their own.
In a quiet, shady corner of Moonflower Garden, where the dew collects into tiny constellations of liquid stars, Bonita the spider swiftly and lovingly tended her web. Bonita was an artist. Each of her webs spun a story—of her days and nights, of the victories and failures, and the lessons she had learned through her life. Her web was not designed to capture but to listen. Each silken strand translated the voices of the wind, the pollen, and passing dreams.
On a golden fall afternoon as the light turned the color of apricots, the Gardener—wearing a periwinkle sweater—smiled and sang. A cloud of orange and gold descended, singing its own song of greeting as it murmurated across the Moonflower landscape. The Gardener stopped digging with her little blue spade and rocked back on her heels, head tilted, listening.
We are Les Ailes du Méridien de Poussière,
the cloud of silent beauty.
We come from far away
and pay no heed to man.
We are the wing that flutters,
the breath that whispers songs
only the beloved may hear.
So listen, friend of the Moonflower,
and when you hear us,
know that you are loved.
O Moonflower, keeper of silence,
let your light fall over me.
We come from far and see so much—
from lands below, from seas and storms—
we come to touch,
to drink your nectar sweet.
Grant us, O Moonflower Garden,
a safe and delicious place
upon which to rest our weary feet.
Let us kiss you with our proboscis,
and we will soothe your tired leaves;
we are part of the pulse of your paradise.
We will make love to your blossoms,
introduce them one to another,
becoming messengers and makers—
We, Les Ailes du Méridien de Poussière,
the cloud of songful beauty.
Come—
feast upon our splendor.
Tears filled the gardener's eyes as she watched the flood of color and motion fill her world. She was agape with wonder as she heard the song they whispered and settled everywhere, wrapping her verdant world in a blanket of amber and saffron.
“Oh!” she cried. “Welcome, beautiful things, to my little world of life. I pray you find solitude and respite here on your journey. Meet my friend Bonita—she is a welcoming host, not what you’d expect.”
The Gardener gestured to Bonita's beautiful web, glowing in the afternoon light and conspicuously absent of the little winged-wonders.
Bonita waved back a welcoming gesture. “Come closer my little jeweled travelers. There is no danger here, I am a vegetarian spider—a weaver not of snares but of stories. I hunger for the wonders you have seen on your journey.”
The little orange spider fit right in among the myriad of trembling wings, her smile, perhaps a little off-putting to her audience, was genuine and bore the warmth of her heart in any case.
Monarch's and their kind are skittish by nature, and so they hovered close, alighting on the lavender and milkweed, wings never still. The gardener thought of a page wiggling in the wind.
“Tell me,” Bonita said, in her best Butterfly-ese, “of the lands you’ve seen.”
They spoke all at once, their voices blending in an almost overwhelming choir. Bonita learned of gleaming mirrored salt flats, storms over cornfields, and canals and lakes alive with creatures of every kind.
She was saddened by tales of those lost along the way, yet thrilled to hear of the millions that would nest far to the south, in the place they called the Valley of Return.
What Bonita loved most, was the love and energy they carried with them. They spoke of wonders and kindnesses, leaving out the woe and hardship. These tiny miracles found joy and happiness in the journey, choosing to focus on the camaraderie and brotherhood they shared. The difficulties were just the road upon which they traveled.
Bonita thought these children of Michoacán were beautiful and beauty multiplied.
As twilight began to deepen, and the Gardener sank into the shadows, a passive observer, Bonita spun a new web. Now it was the guest's turn to marvel. Between the stems of the Moonflower, the garden lattice and the beams of the Gardener's porch, she built a tapestry of silver thread.
Once, one of Bonita's ancestors had wowed a world with a lexicon that saved a life. But as she worked through the night, it was not a dictionary she referenced, but the countless tiny souls that found a safe place here in her world. And so as the sun rose the next morning, the work of Bonita's night shined and glowed for those beautiful little souls that had come so far and found safety and happiness as her guests.
Bonita’s night work gleamed— a giant silver effigy to the lovely company.
“For your rest,” she said softly, “I pray the night has refreshed you and the dawn has healed your wings.”
As she spoke her invocation, a shudder rippled across the yard, through every surface of orange and black and white—an unspoken butterfly gesture of love and gratitude.
Bonita’s eyes welled with appreciation and love. She wished her Gardener could have witnessed the miracle.
The Monarchs rose as one and brushed her web in farewell.
“Your kindness will travel with us,” they cried in whisper. “Even across the Dust Meridian.
Bonita watched them charge the morning air with the power of millions of tiny wings— a drifting constellation in the blue sky.
Then she smiled to herself and to the garden before turning back to her web— and there, gleaming at its heart, was a single orange scale, left behind— like a promise.
#poetry #100daystooffset #writing #story #osxs
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