I

One thing I know for certain: that she was peerless, pearl who would have added light to any prince’s life however bright with gold. None could touch the way she shone in any light, so smooth, so small – she was a jewel above all others. So pity me the day I lost her in this garden where she fell beneath the grass into the earth.

I stand bereft, struck to the heart with love and loss. My spotless pearl.

I’ve gazed a hundred times at the place she left me, grieving for that gift which swept away all shadow, that face which was the antidote to sorrow. And though this watching sears my heart and wrings the wires of sadness tighter, still the song this silence sings me is the sweetest I have heard –

the countless quiet hours in which her pale face floats before me, mired in mud and soil, a perfect jewel spoiled, my spotless pearl.

In the place where such riches lie rotting a carpet of spices will spring up and spread, blossoms of blue and white and red which fire in the full light facing the sun. Where a pearl is planted deep in the dark no fruit or flower could ever fade;

all grasscorn grows from dying grain so new wheat can be carried home. From goodness other goodness grows: so beautiful a seed can’t fail to fruit or spices fail to flower fed by a precious, spotless pearl.

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