In the quiet air where the tall trees grow
She adds her voice to the words of the hall
Secrets only the wise ones know
And the lady of the leaves
In the sheltered air where the trees grow tall
She weaves a web for her own delight
The higher the climb the harder the fall
For the lady of the leaves
She bends like the branches that bow to the breezes
She smiles and she sighs, but she does as she pleases
The lady of the leaves
But the lilt of her laugh and the look of her eyes
Are tiny tendrils twining tight
He can’t escape however he tries
From the lady of the leaves
As he tips from the treetop’s airy height
He calls despairing on her name
Watched in his tumbling, tattered flight
By the lady of the leaves
She bends like the branches that bow to the breezes
She smiles and she sighs, but she does as she pleases
The lady of the leaves
So she stands on her own and she bears the blame
Cold cheeks are turned, no word is said
Then love is a lost and lonely game
For the lady of the leaves
The wild wind whispers of one who is dead
The way she walks is hard and slow
With none beside her to warm the bed
Of the lady of the leaves
She’s tossed like the branches that gust in the gale
She cries and she sighs, and the winter winds wail
The lady of the leaves
(c) Bridget Holland, 2004
First Sight of the Sea
Toiling across the empty waste,
the grass-lined plain,
she sniffs the breeze’s strange salt taste
and hint of rain.
She thinks of those she left in haste,
won’t meet again…
Rough roots and branches knot her knees,
scratch at her hand,
till finally, ‘twixt wind-whipped trees
clinging to sand,
stretched out in front of her she sees
the end of land.
Far wider than the earth she’s crossed,
before her gaze
the peaked and foamy water’s tossed
a thousand ways.
The border of the world is lost
in distant haze.
Great grey green waves of mystery
break the edge of endless sea.
(c) Bridget Holland, 2004