Every night, when the moon rises high in the sky, I sneak through our old wooden gate, past the tall hedges, and into my hidden garden. It’s my secret spot, where the world around me hushes and the stars seem to twinkle just a little brighter. Moonlight spills all around, washing over everything with a soft, silver glow. The flowers open, drinking in the light, and everything smells just a bit sweeter.
Walking through this garden feels like stepping into a dream. The fireflies dance with delight, and gentle whispers of old trees greet me. I’ve named my garden “Luna’s Moonlight Garden,” a place where magic feels close enough to touch.
But tonight, something is wrong.
As I walk the familiar path, I notice my daisies drooping. The roses, once vibrant, are colourless, and even the sweet violets seem to have lost their spirit. I bend down to feel the soft petals. They all feel warm… too warm. Suddenly, a desire rises within me. I want them to dance again, to twirl under the moonlight often they sing.
“Please, flowers, dance again, twirl like bliss above the grass!” I whisper, my voice filled with hope.
“I cannot,” a soft voice replies. I look around but see no one.
“I cannot dance, dear Luna, because a spell has spoiled our night. We cannot bloom without our moon, but a magic gone wrong has stolen the moonlight in our room. We cannot grow; please do not cry.”
“Who are you?” I ask, feeling a chill wrap around me, despite the warm summer air.
“I am an old, old spirit of the moonlit trees, the gentle breeze. I watch worlds unfold under the light, but my magic was cursed one night. We journeyed high, seeking stars, but dark things fell from afar, blocking moons bright silver beams. Now all…but one, are only dreams.”
“You must be the spirit of these woods!” I say, understanding filling me. “But how can I help? I must help! The flowers depend on me!”
“Your little heart is brave and strong, and perhaps you might right this wrong. Light the wax and oil from the bee, blossom-friend is the remedy!”
“How can I make the beehives shine?” I ask eagerly but shake my head. “I have no money, not a single dime!”
The spirit flutters, a smile in the gleam of her whispering voice. “You will find then in the garden of wishes, close to the roses covered with meshes. In a spot you know well, growing under the bell, it feeds pure light any fairy would wish… a flower grown raw for the honeycomb dish.”
My eyes widen in excitement. “Are you talking about the white flower that just opened? Yes! Yes! I have it! I will hurry!” And humming a note of happiness, I run towards my garden and stop beside the white flower known to every bee. Carefully picking its long green stem, I whisper, “Be a sun, flower, brave!”
I dash to the old beehive, lift the heavy sticky lid, and place the flower inside. Quickly, I turn and run back to the garden, with the bees buzzing around me like laughter.
Through the trees where the moonlight grows and settles softly on the petals’ glows, a kiss of magic fills the air. Swiftly, I gather long green twigs and small bits of dry moss, and with trembling hands, begin my task. How brave now feels my heart, how tender like still waters of a northern lake, like a dream of a wee babe in a beautiful mist of moonlight, frosted far off, beyond the clouds, when the first star wakes.
The mood changes, fills and shines, folds lovingly all space like flesh to tender bones; so fine! And whilst an ancient flower revives in a captive hive, a new light gleams under kind Nature’s mournful trees, shimmering like silver dew, trembling on sleeping leaves, like a thousand fairy souls freed from captivity.
With the twigs and herbs I light a little flame. The music of the trees grows soft but loud, soft but loud; it is so strange, so sweet and wild. The old spirit dances, her pale feet touch the trembling ground like thoughts dropped down into the clear still water… one, two, three, four! Above me, the reeds grow higher and higher, the moon giggles and peeps, stretching and turning like a snake, narrowing, widening, with glows of glittering cones…now high up as an elephant’s trunk, now bending… bending… bending to touch my garden.
“Well done, dear Luna! Once again our hopes rest gently on a flower’s healing breath. You have brought back moonlight’s grace to our garden of dreams and love.”
The daisies and lilies twinkle with life. Magpies fluff up their feathers, and the nightingale sings louder than ever. How good the meadow smells, like a juicy pear! I find myself marching before a grand audience, disguised as a beautiful queen, with the big bear ants and the grand seedy beetles who crackle and look like kings, so dangerous and proud with their big black boots.
A strange light above the spot where I stand catches my eye. The flowers remain calm, looking up, beaming up at the new moon now smiling through the tree interspaces. My task is done; Nature’s gentle tears still shine like pearls among the bluebells.
“Farewell, little Luna! Your name will remain amongst us, like the first leaves betwixt the sheets of a new book, and like a new father holding fondly his first-born child.”
And even before my eyes so big with happiness had winked three times, the kind spirit, invisible wrapped in a cloak of beautiful red poppies, was gone. The shimmering light died down; the flowers curled up again, like a mother round a child, over the silvery dew.
A few of Nature’s gentle tears still sparkle amid the violets like diamonds round a neck in the budding springtime.
I shall return to my moonlit garden every night. I shall speak tenderly to the flowers, and clap my hands for joy at every new leaf, aiming higher like sweet chubby moons, every new token of the hours and hours of care that mother Nature has given them. For all those who love her, must, like her, be good and kind, without desiring their heads to exceed beneath the warm roof of her light, all glaring eyes, to be ever shining, and then be called stars by merry children lying on Sundays on their backs in soft thistles to picture from a cloud-tore the parapet of angels’ stair, turning about and about and so on. It is only a fairy tale, but all is so good, my heart shall tremble!
I hear an invisible bee humming in his sleep; on the distant round hill the red nightcap wears is shaking; and in an empty beautiful cloud, the silver round drumhead of a tambourine, with crystal twinklers sewn all around, roars.
The sacred serpent, ever losing its tail, draws, draws ever, drops, drops ever words, words ever, words that but pile up and paint glories so slow. Whispers in your body—and the sound spreading grows, and grows, and crosses valleys full of smiley waving ears, crossing black forests where they nest, and stink with the croaking joy of frogs—long never-ending croaks—players tapping arbitrary notes in a grand and delicious confusion lost in great bizarre wood porches, like castles at the bottom of frightened seas of deep blue-green.
Oh cómo, cómo, como, como the white insect wanders and wanders from cloud to cloud!
The hush growing, and in the crowd of the beautiful instant, brimming with rarest pleasure, glad to forget, all begins again.
Startling I wake, goodbye, little dancing river! Night, little scoffing moon, this of all tomorrows with bribe kisses and masses of love, a streaming letter to the eternal…
Paper—so white!… p-p-p-… what? merry mornings show big haughty cheeks. Words scratch my soul—Oh! must we be sure to find somber pages and free everybody well, upto tonight, singing free nothing but one name each line loves so? That?—Am I to say more, when my nightly dream ends at the dawning veiling like a round schoolboy ball kisses the loud soothed light and covered theplanes behind red plains, before that cloud wearing a grand and terrible moon!