Once upon a time...
there was a star.
The star was only made of dust,
Dust that had pulled together
so tightly
that it burned
so brightly
that from a million
light-years
away
it winked its small light
onto the backdrop of black
that was
the cocoon
that Earth was wrapped in.

A million light-years later
when that light was just reaching
down through Earths
tenuous atmosphere,
down through the fragile miles
past airy cirrus clouds,
poking through the ambient light
of the much closer moon,
it happened to just
catch the eye,
the little unblinking, insignificant
eye
of a swallow
passing by.

The swallow was stunned to see
this pinhole light.
She had followed the moon all night,
she had followed the sun all day
to guide her way
to and fro
from branch to branch and back to nest
never noticing
such a thing in the blackness of
the sky beyond.

Now,
the swallow had always admired the moon most.
The sun was bright and hot,
and performed its duty of compass well..
but the moon was something more,
the moon had form as well as function
the moon gleamed cool and bright
and dusted the fields with milky light...
it swept across the surface of the sea
making many mirror images of itself
that sparkled like bits of glass...
the moon looked down with such a comfortable smile
that the swallow had always wanted to reach the moon.
To take it in her beak and bring it down to
her nest as a treasure for herself.
She thought about this as she fell asleep most nights.

The problem was that the moon was far too large,
and also, she thought,
far to important to the Earth for her to take for herself.
It would have been a selfish thing to do
if she could have even stretched her beak around it,
which she doubted.
But when she saw the tiny star,
it seemed to her as if it were a piece of the moon
that had chipped off, and surely
no one would miss such a tiny, tiny bit.

Suddenly, her dreams were made real,
her goal seemed so reachable,
and so important,
so urgent
that she have this bit of moon,
the wonderful cooling moon
to lay beside her on hot nights,
a precious jewel for her alone...
it would be a wealth unimaginable
a prize that the whole world would envy!

So she flew straight up towards the star
higher than she had ever flown before
higher than anything she had ever known,
she went right up through the clouds
breathing in their wispy smoke.
She continued on tearing through the
atmosphere like a needle through fabric.
She was surprised when she flew past the moon.
The moon that was so much bigger
and so much less luminous and wonderful
than it had seemed from her branch.

But she kept flying, though it felt
as if she had been flying forever
and in fact
she did fly for almost that long.
She flew a million light-years
across the universe
so urgent was her need.

She flew until she reached the star,
the star that was nothing more than
a burning ball of dust
turning in the far reaches
of the galaxy...
not the wonderful jewel that she
could pluck from the sky
and take home with her,
not the fortuitous piece of the moon
that would be a keepsake for her...
just dust in
an endless expanse of nothingness.

The swallows heart broke
a million light-years from Earth
and she didnt have the strength
to go back,
so sighed such a long sad sigh
that her soul left her body
and became its own star,
glinting
across the million light-years
to reach Earth
again at just the right time
that a small girl might see it.

08/22/2008

Posted on 08/22/2008
Copyright © 2026 Vikki Owens