Silence and the Word

by MaryAnne Mohanraj

  “Take the left road,” Stephan replied. “If you go as far as you can go, then you may find good paper.”

  “Take the right road,” Nathan added. “If you go as far as you can go, then you may find a good pencil.”

  “But go quickly, and go now!” they shouted.

  7.

  The poet took the left road. It rose from the seashore, climbing up to the plains, up from the plains to the hills, up from the hills to the foot of the mountains.

  The poet met many strange people as she walked, people of brown and black and pink skins, and hair that curled like ocean waves, or hung straight like the falling sheets of rain. She walked through cities of gold and silver, with fountains of crystal and ivory towers. The road started rough with gravel, but became as smooth as silk.

  She ate vegetables as delicate as fresh milk, and fruit that burned her mouth. She saw monkeys that walked on their hands, and elephants that walked on two feet. She had never known such cities as these.

  8.

  She saw wonders beyond belief, and in one very beautiful city, where shining jeweled bridges connected tall dark towers, she almost forgot about poetry.

  A handsome young man sang songs to her, leaning over a crimson bridge. He dropped rubies at her feet, and promised to dress her in creamy velvet. He had dark flashing eyes, and hands as slim as birds that fluttered when he spoke. Her heart fluttered a little too.

  But when she took the first step up the stairs that led up to his bridge, she tripped on a loose pebble and fell. Out of her bag fell a few sheets of paper, and on them a few sad words that she had scribbled on the road, words that had never quite become a poem. She remembered that she was a poet.

  The poet turned away from the handsome young man, and kept walking.

  9.

  Finally she reached the end of the road, leaving the shining cities behind. It ended at the foot of the mountains, at a huge, dark and smelly cave. She had nothing with which to make a light, but she had come too far to want to turn around. She went in, one hand on the cold stone wall, stumbling in the dark.

  As she walked, keeping the fingers of her right hand always on the wall, a light grew ahead of her. In fact, two lights—one cool and pearly, the other warm and golden. The lights grew brighter and brighter, until she could barely see at all. She stepped blindly forward, and her fingers lost contact with the wall. For a moment, the poet was frightened, but then the light dimmed a little, and she could see again.

  She stood at the entrance to a vast chamber, lit by a unicorn’s shining horn, and a dragon’s golden hoard. The dragon lay atop the pile of gold, and the unicorn was still firmly attached to its horn.

  10.

  The poet almost turned and bolted, but before she could, the unicorn spoke.

  “Don’t be frightened.”

  The dragon snorted, and steam puffed out its nostrils. “Why shouldn’t she be frightened? I’m frightening.”

  “You’re frightening to look at, Kiera-drago, but you have a heart of gold,” the unicorn replied.

  “Hmph! Well, that’s as may be, Kaylei-corn. Don’t you think she deserves to be a little frightened, though, coming in here and disturbing us? Probably wanting to steal some of my little bit of gold or chip a piece off your horn. It would serve her right if I did eat her.”

  11.

  “Oh no!” The poet found her tongue at that, horrified that the dragon would think her a thief (though the pile of gold was so large that she also couldn’t help wondering if the dragon would really miss a piece or two). “I’m looking for good paper.”

  The unicorn tilted its head. “Good paper, is it? And why would you be wanting that?”

  “I’m a poet. And I can’t write poetry,” she explained.

  “Ah,” they said together. “We see.”

  Then there was a long time when no one said anything, and the dragon and the unicorn only stared at her. The poet found it quite unnerving.

  12.

  “You’ll want a good pencil,” the dragon finally said.

  “I know. The crows told me.”

  “Oh, they did, did they? Well, if the crows said so… .” The dragon looked at the unicorn, and the unicorn nodded its head. The poet wasn’t sure what was going on, but it didn’t look like she was about to be eaten, which was good.

  “Here,” the dragon said. And it moved aside a little, so that she could see what lay behind it. There was a huge pile of shimmering stuff—at first she thought it was silk, but then she realized that it was scales, shining cast-off dragon scales. “Take some of these.”

  13.

  The poet stepped forward, slowly, and picked up a scale. It was soft, like the finest parchment, and while one side shimmered, the other side was palest white. If you could write on it, it would make perfect paper.

  She pulled out a pencil, and tried writing. The letters and words flowed across the page. She wrote, “Nathan the Crow.” It looked lovely. Then she started to try to write a poem…but no poetry came out. She bit her lip in frustration.

  The unicorn shook its head. “The pencil.”

  Of course. She needed a good pencil.

  14.

  The poet gathered up a handful of scales. She would have taken more but they wouldn’t fit in her bag. The dragon said not to worry—there would always be another scale in her bag, now.

  Then she thanked them politely, and backed carefully out of the cave. They had been very nice to her, but she still wanted to keep an eye on them as long as possible. The dragon looked hungry.

  When she stepped out of the cave into the wide world again, she felt at least a year older. For a moment, the poet was tired, and thought longingly of her little house by the sea. But she still had a long road to go. She started walking.

  15.

  She walked past the silver cities, and did not pause to look at handsome young men. Before too long, she was back at the crossroads. The crows were waiting.

  “So, you have the paper?” Stephan asked.

  The poet brought out a single shining scale, and Stephan nodded. “Good.”

  “You know where to go for your pencil?” Nathan asked.

  The poet said, “Yes, thank you.” She turned to the right path. There didn’t seem anything else to say to the crows, so she started walking.

  16.

  This path was very different. Its gravel quickly turned to dusty dirt. She passed no cities as she walked—instead, the land grew wilder and wilder. A few sparse birch trees gave way to stands of sturdy oaks. Then the oaks were swallowed up by pines.

  Other trees appeared that she could not name, and she was embarrassed, because it was part of a poet’s job to know the names of trees. She had studied many as a little girl, when she first trained to be a poet. But these trees were too much for her. She didn’t know them at all.

  She tried to name the flowers instead, but soon the lady’s slipper and mugwort and daffydowndillies had all disappeared. No flowers grew by her road—it was just the poet and the trees.

  17.

  The branches grew thicker and thicker overhead, shutting out the light. The road became a path, and then the path grew hard to find. Finally, she was simply trying to find a way through the trees, which seemed to grab at her with sharp branches. Sometimes the branches grew so low and thick that she had to crawl on the ground, which was covered in pointy rocks that cut her knees.

  The poet had gotten hungry too. There were no cities here to buy bread or jam at, and the berries had disappeared long ago. Mushrooms grew everywhere, but she knew that eating the wrong mushrooms would kill you dead. Her stomach had been rumbling for a while, and now it seemed to be trying to climb its way up into her throat.

  When she tripped over a pebble in the road, falling down and cutting open both her hands, it was just too much. She sat back on her heels and cried.

  18.

  She cried for a long time, alone in the woods. She wanted to just lie down there, just give up poetry entirely. She did lie down
, pressing her face into the dirt. She was so tired, and she had paper but no pencil, and she wasn’t sure she had ever really been a poet anyway.

  As she lay there, the wind came whistling down through the trees. It slipped its way between the branches, and ruffled her tangled hair. The world was silent, except for the wind, and for just a second, she thought she could almost hear a poem being whispered. She sat up, wanting to hear what it said, but the wind disappeared.

  The poet took a deep breath, and then got up again. She kept walking, and when she couldn’t walk, she crawled. She wasn’t sure if she was still on the road…but she kept going.

  19.

  The trees became less thickly packed, and she walked faster, eager now. She could see sunlight ahead, streaming down into what must be an empty space. She started running, and burst into a clearing, empty except for one tall tree.

  This one she could name—it was a hazel tree. There was no sign of any path beyond it—no sign at all. Was this the end of her road? She walked up to the tree, and cleared her throat.

  “Excuse me?”

  20.

  “Yes?” Was that the hazel talking? Or just the wind in the tree’s branches?

  “Excuse me, but I’m looking for a good pencil.” There was no answer. The poet raised her voice a little. “The crows sent me.”

  “The crows, is it?” It was definitely the hazel tree. The poet couldn’t tell where its mouth was, but the voice had sort of a woody tone. “And do you have good paper?”

  “Yes. From the dragon.”

  “So. You’ve been to the dragon, and spoken with the crows. Well. I’d best give you a pencil, then.”

  The hazel tree dipped down one of her long branches. “Break off a twig.”

  21.

  The poet reached up, and then paused with her hand on a hazel twig. “Are you sure? I don’t want to hurt you.”

  The hazel chuckled a deep, wavery, woody chuckle. “Bless you, child. You won’t hurt me.”

  The poet wasn’t a child, but she couldn’t take offense—the hazel sounded old, as old as the mountain, or the sea. The poet carefully broke off a twig.

  She stood holding it, not sure what to do. It was only a twig, after all. Not a pencil. How could she write with it?

  22.

  “Just try writing, child,” the hazel tree said.

  The poet pulled out a shimmery scale, turned to its white side, and pressed the tip of the twig against it. A black mark appeared on the paper! She drew a line with the twig, then a few letters. It worked just like a pencil, and the letters were so smooth, so flowing—it wrote like the sharpest, best pencil she’d ever seen!

  She bit her lip, and then tried to write a line of poetry… .

  23.

  Nothing. It didn’t work. The words came out all jumbled, nonsense, useless. The poet was too upset to cry—she just stood there for a moment, not sure if she could breathe.

  “Why can’t I write poetry?” she finally asked the hazel tree.

  The hazel sighed—or was that the wind? “I’m sorry, child. I can’t answer that for you.”

  The poet felt like her heart was breaking, but she’d been raised to be polite. “Well, thank you for the pencil. It’s lovely.” Then she turned and walked back the way she’d come.

  24.

  The forest path seemed much clearer going back, but the poet didn’t care. She had her paper, and her pencil, and she still couldn’t write poetry. Could she still be missing something? And would she ever find it?

  She walked with heavy feet all the way back to the crossroads. She ate some berries along the way to keep up her strength. When she arrived at the crossroads, the crows were waiting.

  “Well,” Nathan said, “did you get the pencil?”

  25.

  The poet just stared at the crows for a long minute. Then she started to speak, and her voice was low and angry.

  “I walked up into the hills, past the silver cities and their wonders and marvels. I almost fell in love with a handsome young man, and I entered a dragon’s cave. I spoke with the dragon, and with a unicorn, and I found very good paper.”

  “Then I walked out into the woods, into the deepest, darkest woods, filled with trees even a poet could not name. I stumbled on the rocky path, and cut my knees and hands. I fell and cried and picked myself up again, and finally I found the hazel tree. I have a very good pencil.”

  “I have seen much of the wide world, much more than I thought I would ever see, much more than I imagined there could be. I have been hungry and tired and I think I have walked for years, so that my feet are now as tough as leather. I have been so homesick that I wanted to lie down and die, but I kept walking.”

  “I have done everything you said I should do.” The poet’s voice had grown soft, and quavery. “But I still cannot write poetry.”

  26.

  Nathan ruffled his feathers, looking upset. “Well, I’m glad you have the pencil. It will be a good pencil for you.”

  And Stephan added, “That paper will last you forever.”

  The poet exclaimed in frustration, “But what good are they?”

  Stephan shook his black crow head back and forth, sadly. “There are many questions we can answer, but we can’t answer that one.”

  Nathan cawed once, loudly, and then said, “Go home, young poet.”

  She was tempted to pick up a stone and throw it at them—but what would be the point, after all? The poet closed her eyes, opened them again, and then turned to the path that led home. She started walking, leaving the crows behind her.

  27.

  The path turned sandy beneath her feet, and she knew she was getting close to home. She could smell the sea, its salty sweetness. Night had fallen by the time she reached the little house by the sea, and a long silver path of moonlight lay across the dark water.

  She stood on the beach for a long time, listening to the crashing waves, feeling the cold water squelch up around her toes. Her bag hung heavy on her shoulder—all the coins were long gone, and all that lay within it were a few dragon scales and a hazel twig. It would be light and easy to throw into the sea. The sea could easily swallow up such a little bag and never notice.

  The moonlight moved over the water. The poet turned away from the sea and opened the door to her house.

  28.

  It was such a little house. She had seen palaces in her travels, and wide woods. Her house would be lost in either. But there was her desk, by the window, its rough surface beloved and familiar. She had spent so many hours studying there as a girl.

  She sat down at the desk, and pulled out a scale and the twig from her bag. She expected them to look strange on her poor little desk, but somehow, they looked right.

  She picked up the twig in her right hand, just to see how it felt. It felt good, at home there. She spread out the dragon scale with her left hand, smoothing it until it felt like fine paper.

  The poet bit her lip, and began to write.

  29.

  She wrote poetry. It was perhaps not the best poetry in the world—it was her first, after all. Everything before that had been just mangled stutterings, clumsy ugly blotches of words on the page. This was just a start, perhaps, but it was really poetry.

  The poet doesn’t know why she can write now, when she couldn’t before. Is it the hazel twig pencil? The dragon scale paper? Her good wood desk and the ribbon of moonlight with the smell of the sea through her window?

  Or maybe it is the long road and the walking, the silver cities and the dark woods. Maybe it is the almost love of a handsome young man who sang songs from a crimson bridge, a man with slim hands that fluttered like birds. Maybe it is crying on sharp stones with bleeding hands, lying down and wanting to die, but getting up and going on instead. Maybe it is a dragon and a unicorn, a hazel tree, and two crows at the crossroads.