Pastoral crown

I listened to an old Tracy Chapman album, her first. Her almost masculine voice brings together sadness and revolution. I like the tone that runs through simple melodies and texts with no pretension. Her voice tells me stories of lost or deceased love, and evokes other things that touch me equally: the desire to flee, the absence of forsaking, the will to fight with poetry and music as our only unstoppable arms.I opened my Pandora’s box again, the one I had slid under my bed. I took out a crown of leaves that Alasdair had braided for me when we were in Kilmartin. I wanted to show him the place where I had grown up. He made that sprite crown for me, and placed it solemnly on my head. It has become all dry and fragile. I didn’t dare put it back on my head, for fear of breaking it. Besides, I’m no longer the fairy queen, even if I still speak their language. I went out into the garden to take a photo of it.