Sunday morning and the Sunday whirl, a fable

It’s Sunday morning and the birdsong has chased away the dark of the night, so I suppose it’s safe to bring you a darker whirl, since the sun is out and we’re all feeling safe and cozy with our tea and breakfast in our bed.

vault, halls, swirl, crave, throat, wind,
limbs, nimble, prairie, rapture, train, each

‘Listen to me’, she said in a raspy voice, dusty and torn on that street corner as she stopped us on our walk.

‘There was a day on Earth when nothing died,’ she said, ‘and Death was pacing the black halls of his black heart with nothing to do and a craving he could not explain.

But rather than give in, he drew his scythe from his vault and ascended above the world, above the prairie, the forest, the mountain and past Earth’s borders to do some astral tidying up.

All day he nimbly swung his scythe. The swirl of silver steel cut thru the wind, the cold, the dark, and life string after life string was cut free sending the stars tumbling thru the celestial blue till his limbs felt weak and his scythe was beginning to dull.

And hundreds of lovers stared up at the sky holding hands and kissing and counting their blessings that night as a steady train of shooting stars fell down, tangling in trees or landing in back yard sand boxes.

But when Death stopped to mop his brow he realised that the stars shine so brightly in their desperate state to deceive Death of their dying, and now there were only a few stars left fighting off the dark of the night.

Then the next day and for years afterwards he had double the work as heart after heart broke at the sight of a starless sky.’

She stopped speaking and released her hold and she stared at each of us; our eyes wide open in rapture.

Then she looked away thru tears and swallowed hard, as though there was a lump in the back of her throat.