Story For a Girl with Copper-Colored Hair

Alternative version thinking of Luca Signorelli’s frescoes in the Cathedral.

The breeze came down

from the topmost spire

and wrapped its arms around her,

sweeping her along and up the stairs.

There on the topmost step,

with the great bronze angel 

looming up on high,

she stood and looked at the figures 

carved in white marble.

---

And then she wasn’t sure

whether they came down to her

or whether she went up to them

for suddenly they were all around her,

birds chattering and clucking, cooing and whistling,

warbling, trilling, tweeting, cheeping and chirping,

and in the waves at her feet water snakes

and eels and fish with fine scales

and crabs and lobsters scittered and slithered

and wiggled and swam in the water

delighted at the new-found world

their Creator had just given them.

---

He spread wide his arms and animals of all kinds

began to roam the earth.

The buffalo snorted and stamped

on the ground with their hoofs,

the horses raced whinnying in groups

along the beach to the ocean,

tiger and lion prowled the jungle,

camels wondered why they had two humps

as giraffes stretched out their long necks

to browse on the trees.

Wolves trotted along the plain,

antelopes and mountain goats

clambered over the rocks.

---

And He, the Creator, stood at one side

smiling down at his creatures 

while the two neighboring angels 

whispered together and sent sidelong glances

at the little copper-haired girl

and the tiny green frog

perched on her shoulder

who had suddenly

appeared out of nowhere.

---

What in the world is that, they asked.

She doesn’t have feathers, or wings like us.

She doesn’t have scales or swim in the water.

And they whispered together and thought

they would wait and see

just how she fitted into the picture,

---

The Creator looked at the little girl

with her copper-colored hair.

Come, let me show you something else.

He reached down and took a handful of earth,

shaping it into the semblance

 of a man and a woman.

Setting the couple under a tree, 

He glanced at the little girl,  

It is now up to them, He reflected.

As they began

to think for themselves,

the thought occurred to Him

that breathing life

into these two figures

entailed unforeseen risks.

But by then it was too late,

the harm had been done.   

---

The little girl, sunbeams toying

with the strands of her copper-colored hair,

 her curiosity piqued,

looked at Him questioningly,

“yes, please, I want

to know what comes next.”

The little green frog,

still perched on her shoulder,

tried his best to stop her

from crossing the threshold of no return.

To no avail, and she moved on,

with a host of other creatures in her wake,

and floated,

dancing, down the aisle,

into a Pandora’s box of a future 

with its reign of flames and hell and suffering, 

a world the Creator had never meant to be

---