Honour

Bless this girl of green, this shoot that never grew past the sole of someone’s shoe.
Girl of green, with hat of silver and a handful of starry night she scatters over shadows and dark things. Bless her and her boots of bottle blue. Her smile of dynamite and her eyes of golden dreaming. Charlotte plays with broken brass and climbs hills of steely grey, and when she reaches the top she is the highest girl in all the world. The tallest girl in all the kingdom. And she can love the people so much more when they are tiny dots below, when they are moving specks on the dusty horizon. She is special. And her cheeks are filled with dough. She laughs like a boy and sings like a sailor. She is bright like a morning when all is good.
Charlotte likes the rain. It falls on her cheeks like a sign from God.
One day she will wake with blossom on her pillow and her hair will fall and her boots will fray and all the stars will gather to see their dawn. Charlotte sleeps and wakes too early. She walks beside the quiet river with feet cool and wet from all that sweetness, all that life in the grassy river. She will get muddy and wet from tramping in the marshes. And she will shiver just before the sun comes up, and wish that she were home.
Bless this girl of green, with breasts of silk and cheeks of darkest rose. Inside her lives another life, of a moon behind clouds, red amongst grey, sound in the soundless.
She draws back her bow and aims her arrow high.
In the bark of an oak tree is her wish, to be strong, and grow.
Birds, find it, take it to the listener.
Fly in circles like a crown upon her head.
And let the dust never settle.