The Half-Girl

Sit down with me and settle in.
In just a moment, we’ll begin.
It’s hard work to tell these tales.
It’s harder work to listen well,
But if you’re ready, you will see
Just how rewarding it can be.
Let’s go.

A village in the evening hour.
The birds were silent, closed the flowers.
Yet not one person was in bed
Although the sun had long since set.
The bright day’s end had brought a child.
A father’s laughter. A mother’s smile.
The villagers all came to lay
Their gifts and blessings on the babe.
Each one had words of praise to say:
‘Oh what a lovely, bright right eye!’
‘What a handsome, round right hip!’
‘’Such a strong, right shoulder’s slope!’
‘What a delicate right hand!’
Each word was spoken kindly and
Was true as far as such things went.
A lovely child, and heaven sent.
Such kind-meant words. Not one was said
That half a child lay on that bed.
A fine right half was laying there,
But on the left, only air!
She grew up strong with no left side–
Her right eye bright, half-smiling wide.
But when she neared her womanhood,
She knew that something wasn’t good.
Her right hand had no twin to hold.
What sights took left eyes to behold?
It’s hard to know just what you lack
When lack is all you’ve ever had.
Nevertheless, she took her heart,
Her longing for her missing parts,
And brought them up to her dear mother,
Who listened but she knew no other
Way that her girl ought to be.
‘Your right half is just right to me.’
Dissatisfied, the half-girl went
Into the Elder’s smoky tent.
They had no wisdom they could share.
They couldn’t name what wasn’t there.
She took her pain to aunts and friends.
Every one of them dead ends.
At last, she knew that she must go
And set out on a wilder road.
As young folk do when they leave home,
She set her face and heart like stone.
She would be firm, albeit lost.
Her missing half was worth the cost.
She would pay most any price
To see the world with two clear eyes.

Through lands of snow and lands of sand,
Through lands of golden sunlight and
Lands covered all in dark rain clouds,
She spoke to all her wish aloud.
She spoke to elders and to crones,
Asked where her left half made its home.
She spoke to men young as her brothers,
To women who were not yet mothers.
She spoke to children at the last,
But none had wisdom for her task.
At last, she walked along a river,
Cold, alone, and all a’shiver
With fear that she would never find
Her missing self or heal her mind.
She walked along the river, lonely,
Then saw that she was not the only
One who walked the pebbled shore.
She saw a face she’d seen before.
Familiar, yet still so strange.
A face to bring about a change.
She’d found herself, but there was danger,
For wild selves are full of anger.
They don’t forgive a long neglect.
It’s frightful work to reconnect.
It lunged at her on that grey day.
Her missing self would have its way
For being left so long alone
Without a place, without a home.
The half-girl walked as if a storm
Drove her to a leeward shore.
She crashed into the other girl
Who tore at her with hiss and snarl.
They scrapped and grappled til they fell
And sank like coins into a well.
The river closed about their heads.
They fought down deep within its depths.
From the surface, only bubbles
Signalled their embattled troubles.
The bubbles faded. All was still.
There came a cold and quiet chill.

The half-girl drowned, but did not die.
The river gave her up to lie,
Cold and dazed, but somehow whole
In both her body and her soul.
She coughed and retched up river water.
Slowly, groaning turned to laughter
As two hands wiped mud from her face,
And down two cheeks tears freely raced.
Her sight was bleared, but as she cried
And shed her tears, they slowly dried
And left her vision newly clear.
She was whole and without fear.
She turned her face toward home again
And walked through sun and walked through rain.
She re-crossed lands of sand and snow,
Guided by a gentle blow-
-ing wind which always pressed her on,
As if it knew how long she’d gone,
How long she’d crossed the world and roamed,
How much the whole-girl needed home.
She leaped and ran and kicked her heels
As sun and moon performed their reels.
At last she found the city gates
Were opened wide as to embrace
Her as she humbly entered in.
She was met by two dear friends,
Both older now, strange to her eyes.
Yet they were not at all surprised
To see her standing there at last,
Bearing now her missing half.
‘We missed you so, but always knew
That what you set about to do
Was always meant to bring you back.
Our city would not always lack
The gifts that you set out to find.
They weren’t for you, but all our kind.
Now that you are healed and whole,
Now you can tend the city’s soul.’
At last, the whole-girl took her place
And wove for them her tales of grace.
The tales she gathered in her seeking,
Tales of love with wildness peeking
From a left eye slyly winking
Because it knows that sometimes sinking
Into the darkness isn’t death
But makes a body truly blessed.
So while her tales are full of mud,
Of danger and a bit of blood,
They’ll always lead you, hand in glove,
Back to daylight, back to love.

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