Altarwise

I made a deity this week.  I put a windfall from a storm, a branch of oak leaves, in a wooden eggcup on the altar where I keep my talismans.  And then I found a much beloved, elusive scarf pin of a face—a numen or a nymph.  It's mischievous—it slips away, will not be pinned.   And I'd been finding it and losing it all week in the upheaval, until the last time when I pounced on it, and thought, I'll put you here, where I can see you.  And I stuck it in upright in the leaves.

When I turned round again, the three—the cup, the branch, the trinket—had become an ever-changing one, a swift-still metamorphosis.

At times they're an autumnal Ariel....




...or else a dryad by Vermeer....



...a punk Annunciation by a stubbled Gabriel...



...a just-pubescent Merlin, ancient to the edge of childhood...



...and in certain shadows now, a harpy in a wood of souls.

Nine