One day a little boy came to the front steps of a huge doorway. A doorway that looked ancient of wood and giant to him. He gently knocked on the door with his small hand curled and waited for it to creek and slightly open. Behind the door was an old old woman. She gazed at him and he blushed as though suddenly he had lost his way. Coming out to play he asked? And she opened the door wide and took him into her arms and held him near and dear to her heart.
The wise old woman comes out to play. I love this!
My precious mother loves this painting as she shares the heart of the eternal echo of the earth. Although I named this charming old woman "Pearl," my mother refers to her as "Aunt Leaf" after Mary Oliver's wonderful poem called Aunt Leaf. I love this poem and perhaps you will smile as well. Mary Oliver writes...
Aunt Leaf
Needing one, I invented her – – –
the great-great-aunt dark as hickory
called Shining-Leaf, or Drifting-Cloud
or The-Beauty-of-the-Night.
Dear aunt, I'd call into the leaves,
and she'd rise up, like an old log in a pool,
and whisper in a language only the two of us knew
the word that meant follow,
and we'd travel
cheerful as birds
out of the dusty town and into the trees
where she would change us both into something quicker – – –
two foxes with black feet,
two snakes green as ribbons,
two shimmering fish – – – and all day we'd travel.
At day's end she'd leave me back at my own door
with the rest of my family,
who were kind, but solid as wood
and rarely wandered. While she,
old twist of feathers and birch bark,
would walk in circles wide as rain and then
float back
scattering the rags of twilight
on fluttering moth wings;
or she'd slouch from the barn like a gray opossum;
or she'd hang in the milky moonlight
burning like a medallion,
this bone dream, this friend I had to have,
this old woman made out of leaves.
– Mary Oliver
I hope this gaze, into your own beautiful eyes, blesses you today.