The Wisteria Fairy and the Lonley Queen

Wisteria. It is in the air and on the vines, climbing over the trees and defying the dusty limerock roads. It's fragrance is like a bird's song, flittering here and then there, never certain of its own location. This time of year there is more purple than green in the trees. This flower hangs and drips like bunches of grapes and spanish moss. I think the thick dark vines might grow arms and reach out to take me in.


Queen Wisteria

How many arms you have
but I've yet to see your fingers
maybe they're hidden under the
tangle of your limbs
which hug the trees in deep embrace
and grace their crowns with flowers
you looked so lonely in winter time
so desperate, so empty
hanging there limply by yourself
waiting for your lover to return
with nothing to fill the interim
but now spring is here and your lover
has returned with wreaths of green
to kiss your branches and stroke your vine
tickle the bark with tendrils of new growth
you do not begrudge his absence
and once again you hold him close
the fragrant pinnacle of your season
loving only with your tender, purple heart
loving without reason.

I love wisteria. Or is it wysteria? When we were little my cousin Mariah swore she was going to name her daughter Wisteria and I asked if we could call her "Wisty." If you wrote it "Wysty" it would look Welsh. It sounds so mystical. All things Welsh are mystical. Wist, wish, wishteria. Wisteria-- the fanciful purple spellbound fairy that simultaneously grants your wishes and gives you the proper wisdom to use them. One glance upon her delicate beauty and men can never be the same. They write songs about her--she is a secret and a muse and a legend. The fairy that seems to have it all wants only to fall in love with these handsome men but cannot because she is spellbound to the fairy realm--she is not ready to sacrifice her beauty and live in the treacherous realm of mortal men. She is jealous of the women who come to her, the women who have known love, who can know love, who are loved. Her secret desire to wade in matters of the mortal is her torment. She will never tell anyone. She wonders at the people who find her in the forest, begging to be united with a loved one, pleading with her to help them find their passion. She wonders what it feels like. She will never know. She imagines...what would it feel like if she stepped off her plateau? If she shed her fairy robes? If her heart were unprotected? She swims in the lake at night under the fog, wondering.