IIII: Return, Sweet Innocence

On fairest cheek, love's first blush
Does to the fevering surface rush
Where ice and snow from winters past
Melt soft in sunlight's warmth at last.

On pale lips, a moist blush spreads
And paints the pair in deepest reds
Forgotten frowns fall far away
A newborn smile on lips doth play.

Into the maidens darkest eyes
A brightness blinks from starry skies
Where, not in night, but brightest day,
Starlight bursts through each shining ray.

And in her heart, the truest change
For all the hopes it had contained-
Each one blooms into flowers shape
And fields of color there do wake

And so return sweet innocence
And childlike wonder to present tense
And lost she will no longer roam
For in his love hath found her home.



Part Five: to be continued...


Written by Rachael Sage Payne ©
(Image credits: "Theme and Variations" by Piero Fornasetti, © Fornasetti.
Color added by Rachael Sage Payne.)

III: The Vision

Young lids covered old eyes, and she was tethered to a center she could not find. She danced circles around herself, sensing familiar presences, sensing distant memories. She felt alone and far away, and without direction.

And there was the Fear, which followed her in cold hallways. It reached out to her, but disappeared into rings of phantom smoke when she turned, like the slow burning pages of the last book that tells the story.

But the cord was wrapping gracefully in its patterned destiny, pulling her closer...

There came a day when her cord had exhausted its tethering dance, and the weight at its end met at last with the center it had played satellite to. There was a soft clinking sound, and then silence. And then came the vision.

When her eyes opened, she felt truly alive, and she found herself in that glorious place between sleeping dreams and waking dreams. Clouds parted before a sky colored brilliantly with beauty and meaning and depth- and all of these seeped into her through her new eyes.


What she saw there in those moments could never be unseen, and she knew this more deeply than anything. She had come home, and now she could find her way alone...



Written by Rachael Sage Payne ©
(Image credits: "Theme and Variations" by Piero Fornasetti, © Fornasetti.
Color added by Rachael Sage Payne.)

II: The Fleshing

Often, her heart would turn into a wild butterfly
and flutter feverishly to and fro, until it fell
breathless to the bottom of the cage.

She felt devastatingly sweet music pump warmly
through her veins. She savored every drop of rich
color on her tongue.Ger eyes gazed deeply into the
smell of the powdery cloud that rose from a petal
where a bee bounded down.

These things filled her with joy, longing, sorrow,
and a swelling so strong she would overflow with
salty tears.

She was of the flesh...


Written by Rachael Sage Payne ©
(Image credits: "Theme and Variations" by Piero Fornasetti, © Fornasetti.
Color added by Rachael Sage Payne.)

I: Green

... And so it was born again:
A collection of millions of
memories,
lessons,
and feelings
- From many lives -
Suddenly stuffed into the
awkward confines of a
mortal vessel.

Green again-
green and curious-
but wiser with each turn.
And ready this time:
Ready. This time...



Written by Rachael Sage Payne ©
(Image credits: "Theme and Variations" by Piero Fornasetti, © Fornasetti.
Color added by Rachael Sage Payne.)