Amaryllis and The Belladonna Lily

Amaryllis and the Belladonna Lily…

Amaryllis sat alone reveling in the solitude.  Spring was presenting itself as she stared out the screen door, while the birds chirped and fluttered around the back porch feeder.

The piles of messy messes beckoned her attention indoors.  But the outdoors lured her instead to photograph the emerging lilies she had noticed blooming outside the front door.

Sadness can course quickly through one's soul overwhelming daily reasoning and logic.  Losing time as you watch reality dematerialize. Waning out.

As she entered the house, she thought seriously about burning the furniture that had cradled her for years.  Sitting down somberly in the rocking chair that she also despised, she began to rock back and forth.  As if to soothe herself somehow.

The guitar on the loveseat caught her eye, it had been left out in the rain a few days before.  She suddenly felt empathetic.  Unexpectedly, she was taken back to a time she welcomed the strumming of those tightly strewn strings.  The cords pressed and plucked; vibrating under pressure to produce a harmonious sequence of sounds.

Tempestuous anger railed behind her core.  Beating against her chest like raging waves stirred from an unseen violent force.  At times she felt as though she would separate.

She became annoyed with unwanted noise as she tried to organize herself.  Productivity was wanted but only the weeping came.  An introspection entered her mind to collect her briny tears in a mason jar so she could see the merit of her sorrow.

The phrase -I am the salt of the earth.- Rose up gently from within.

Chronology calls on the unwilling, she conversed in her head.  A soul so full of love and a heart replete with generosity.  Yet, bare in the moment, poured out.  Sapped with the cares of this life.

What had happened to contentment and joy? Where had they strayed?  Withdrawing themselves like sullen friends.

She glanced up at the guitar again. Remembering a time it was well cared for and played often.  Savored as a precious belonging. Bringing gladness to the dancing eyes behind its rounded body and finesse to the fingers that gripped the fretted neck.  She longed for those days when she would lay across the bed and intrude on the acoustics filling the air, while inscribing the lyrics that were falling from sumptuous lips onto paper.

Days evaporate as do tears in a jar.  Longing for the past steps into the line of sight for the future.  She lifted the wooden guitar, placing it back in its case as the mid morning sun forced its way through her windows.  She would now force her way through the gift of the day.

The amaryllis bloomed every year without fail for as long as she could recall.  Their scarlet color stood out against the lush green bursting forth.  Amaryllis loved red, the color of passion, from rage to romance.  She didn't plant them but she knew the hands that did and found comfort and hope as she had peered through her viewfinder.

In her delving days later, she found the term Amaryllis is Latin in root, meaning Shepherdess. Also known as the Belladonna Lily, coined from the Italian/Indo European in root, for Beautiful Lady.  The plant likewise, is called the Deadly Nightshade; seeing that it is poisonous.  Astoundingly, she found that the alkaloids existing in this flower can also be used for healing and therapeutic purposes.

Amaryllis felt a kindred connection as she read on.  She too at times felt as though she were toxic to others.  Bitterness encased in her roots making its way through her unintentional ambiguous bell-shaped trumpet.  Spilling from her like soot covered pollen, powdering those around her in darkness.

The Shepherdess, she felt, was such a much better fit for her on most days.  Guarding and tending to another's well being.  Overseeing the pasturing; staff in hand.  The pace of life for an old soul.  Patient with resistance against the predator of heaviness.  Woes nullified in the wind while the ryegrass waves them goodbye.

Amaryllis lifted her face to the sun, soaking in the blue of the sky caused her to reminisce about the eyes that danced behind the guitar.  How he would dance with her, taking her by the hand, leading her from one day to the next, one step at a time...