cottonwood faeries

once upon a time there was a very tall cottonwood tree, and once upon a time somebody (I imagine a wizened, white-haired sage, with a long, thick cloak) nailed a pair of eyes, a nose, and a mouth into its trunk. since then, the mouth and one eye have fallen off. maybe that's why one of its bottom branches on the north side is looking a little bit dead. maybe the cottonwood is losing its magic.

this cottonwood tree, like every cottonwood tree, produces cottonwood seeds, which as everyone knows sprout fuzzy little wings and turn into cottonwood faeries. this summer, our entire neighborhood was caught in the throes of their chaotic dancing. they love windy days. I wish I had pictures of them then. if any little balls of cotton could be described as fierce, these could.

but when the wind stops, the faeries get lazy. they congregate in the bushes and the grass and the gutters and the windowsills, and they do their best to impersonate spiderwebs. of course, we all know better. we know that they are in fact sleepy, sluggish faeries who ought to be flying far, far away to plant new cottonwood trees out in the great wild world. though I suppose after all that revelry anyone would need a bit of a rest.

those summer cottonwood faeries have been gone for months now, but a few weeks ago their cousins showed up. it was, as usual, on a very windy day. they climbed stealthily up into the branches of our very tall cottonwood tree and tore off its golden leaves one at a time. then they flew them all over the yard like magic carpets, swirling and rushing and looping and diving like mad.

and now, even those faeries have gone to sleep underneath the increasingly bare branches of the very tall cottonwood, curled up invisibly among the broken twigs and dampened grass of late, late autumn.

last weekend, snow started falling. all of the summer faeries and almost all of the autumn faeries have been buried in white, become frozen and dormant. only the ice faeries are brave enough to visit the old one-eyed tree now. it will be many months before the dancing seed-faeries make a reappearance. with any luck I'll have my camera ready when they do.