Magic for a Moment

At dawn, an otherworldly light broke through the gathering rain. A watercolor fuchsia sunrise dripped across the inky canopy at the edge of the earth. But, in the center of the sky, a molten glow illuminated the dust of drizzle in the air. All around me, the air glittered. Thousands of tiny, misty drops hung suspended in the errant sun beam, as if gold dust had drifted down from a fairy’s wings to grace the earth.

The air in my lungs felt warm, like I was breathing in a late afternoon Kauaian shower rather than the autumn chill which had taken hold of late. A hushed quiet, broken by the occasional drop of dew falling from the tangerine tree, filled me to overflowing. I drew in a shuddering breath, and a shiver of electricity pierced me. I could hear its buzz crowding out, yet, somehow, also underlying both the silence and the faint patter of rain.

The world seemed as if to float in a parallel plane, just a touch above the earthly realm, as if reality had slightly shifted and now time blinked at a different pace…as if we had entered into a fairy realm.

From the tall pine on the back hill, an owl called. The telegraphic beat of its hoot echoed through the mist. I blinked, and when I opened my eyes — I saw the rainbow.

Had it been there all along? Or had it been whispered into existence between breaths?

Another owl, a mate perhaps, answered the first. Its staccato hoot seemed, to me, to ask, “do you see the magic?”

It had coalesced out of fairy’s breath and dew. Vaulting across the sky, it touched the tips of the pines and then leapt back in a second, shimmering, dissolving arch that melted into the rising morning light.

Translucent green, like sunlight streaming through an emerald-colored cut glass vase, and blue that tasted of water, and indigo which momentarily filled the air like the breath of a lilac in summer, and the ruby red of a queen’s ring, and the yellow of afternoon sun on tall grasses lingered in the air. Each color was distinct. And yet, it was difficult to see where one began and another ended.

A flap of wings broke the silence. The tawny owl and its mate pressed their breasts into the wash of iridescent flush which rose up the neck of the morning. And then, they vanished into the filaments of her hair, which streamed up towards the surface of the sky, from the horizon of the earth.

And, the rainbow realm was gone….

Now, an ordinary gray mist drifted across the valley…although, perhaps it wasn’t entirely ordinary, but somehow altered, changed a little by its experience with the light.

Or, perhaps, I wondered, was it me who had changed, seeing the world now with new eyes?

Had my vision been shifted by a perspective from another realm, from the space between the rainbows — a doorway into their world? For, surely, the fairies had slipped in for a moment, and had had a little fun, adding a little gilt and glow, and painting the world with magic for a moment.

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Story and photos ©Erika Burkhalter, all rights reserved