Once upon a time...

There was a pile on pile of charts
A pile on pile of ropes
A pile on pile of canvas

And only one small cabin girl to make sense of it all.
To make it more only, there were very few cabin girls on the seas.
Sea life was too dangerous for fair damsels, promised the men.
Sea life was too shocking for young ladies, admonished the women.

So it was cabin boys who were forced to endured the kicks, bad weather, and foul language.
But it was also the cabin boys who were allowed to run free in the rigging, travel the world, and learn the language of the sea. The girls stayed home and learned their respectively useful trades of seamstress, cook, and washwoman, if they had need of employment at all. Noble families preferred to keep their children safely at home, though after a certain age a young man could go to sea. A young woman, next to never.

So this cabin girl was a double rarity, both in being a girl and in coming from a modestly wealthy family. Her father was a well to do trader from a good family.Her mother, now, came from abroad, and rumour had it, was less than dignified in her former life. Occasional delicious stories of freedom were told to the daughter at bedtime, usually prefaced with an innocuous, "Once upon a time there was a girl..." But from there the stories would diverge into tales of running barefoot down the streets of Marseille, riding riverboats down the Seine, or- gasp- going on small family voyages across to Marocq and other exotic places. Like many good tale weavers, the mother avoided identifying exact names of the characters, preferring 'the once-upon-a-time girl'. There was a certain sparkle in her eye during story time, but she occasionally threw in stories of Northumberland moors and Indian bazaars, so one could never be entirely sure.... The cabin girl's own name was an equally interesting concoction -Marjam Coulée Elsbet Giaconde de la Venta - but she was more affectionately known as Coucou. (How much of that came from the ungainliness of her full name and foreign pronunciations, and how much came from the 'cuckoo, I see you!' her French mother chirped in the monrnings, is unknown.)

All that said... Coucou was a very lucky girl. By birth, by family and heritage, naturally. Equally, and less conventionally, in tutoring from an early age in languages and geography. "I must make some use of you before you turn to pirating, my lass," her father would chuckle, and her mother would add, "How do you expect to keep up with the lads unless you show yourself capable?" With two languages spoken in the home, plus a scattering of others from various servants and governesses, Coucou was well ahead of her agemates in that regard, and geography came easy when 'The Thousand and One Nights' mingled in one's head along with 'Beowulf'. Mathematics were more troublesome, until one clever tutor brought in equatorial maps and had her calculate longitude and longitude. And visiting sailing mates of her father were more than happy to show the young lady how to shoot the stars with quadrants. Soon she was using a lead line on weekend trips and keeping a miniature logbook in uneven writing....

When her mother received word of an ailing mother in France, what could be more inviting than for the adventuresome three to travel there? And then perhaps back along what the mother, with a smile in the corner of her mouth, called 'the pretty way'? So it was settled, the house packed up for the present and bundles carried onto the sweetest sailing vessel in the harbour, L'hirondelle. "It means 'The Swallow', like the bird," explained Coucou gravely to her small friends, "and if we fly away on it and never return, I shall think of you when I see the stars." Her friends, knowing this was no light promise, nodded back and wished her well. "We know the post is uncertain," said one small demoiselle apologetically, "but do let us know what adventures you have? And the lands you see? We will write back and address our letters to L'Hirondelle, and they will find you." "And they will find me," replied Coucou, touched and grateful. They embraced, and waved her off one fine morning in March. After boarding, she went straightaway to see how much work was for her to do, down in the hold, but returned quickly to the rail to wave. And then, as they pulled away with the tide, she climbed to the next level of rigging, scolding away the tears and forcing her thoughts to the piles and piles to be dealt with. Farther and farther, and she gave up on plans and dry eyes and climbed to the crow's nest.

There would be time enough for life and adventures. Here she could see for miles, and blow kisses to what had been her home, as she stood near the top of her new one.

The End

Once upon a time

There was a princess.
And she was not particularly beautiful, or particularly wise.
She had a decent memory, which helped in studies, but her handwriting was atrocious.
Her tutors despaired of her.
She fell off horses during riding lessons, and was forever hitting trees, not targets, in archery.
Her riding and shooting instructors despaired of her.
She spilled tea while pouring, and occasionally even missed her seat and fell during etiquette.
Her governesses despaired of her.
(Especially when all that could be seen of her was a rumpled heap of giggling, wiggling petticoats.)

But no one could stay annoyed with the princess for very long.
Because she was good tempered, even when scolded.
And it was obvious that she did try, despite her failures.
And all the lower servants adored her, even as they swept up cup after broken cup.
Because she made up for her mishaps by graceful apologies and bribes of sweet things from her pockets.

And after all the failed lessons and patiently shaken heads, she would curtsy and then waltz out of the room.
Carefully, hand over hand on the railing, she would make her way upstairs.
And there she would perch on her papa's knee and listen to him administer importance to the kingdom.

Occasionally, after the last subject bowed out and away from the Royal Presences, the princess would pat her papa's face.
"What do you see out the window?" she would ask.
When she first lisped the question, at age three, no one thought anything of it, because she was too short to see outside.
As the years went on, it became a pet game between the two of them.
"I see the trees bowing to each other before a promenade," the king might say, smiling.
Or "I see the clouds playing at hide-and-go-seek with the sun."
On particularly challenging days of work, the king might growl, "I see a hawk about to devour a pigeon. Take that, insolent wretch!"
(For a king must always be courteous when administering justice to his court, but what he thinks in his private time is his own.)

As the years went farther on into the future, the princess was given a highly embroidered chair of her own, next to his.
(Only hers had cushioned arms so she couldn't fall out, as she was prone to doing.)
The court came to welcome the days when her little head nodded wisely next to her papa's shoulder.
The king grew quicker to mercy, and his justice was administered more thoughtfully, as she nodded approval at his side.
And there were gradually less days of diving hawks, and more of playing clouds and promenading trees.

The End.

Once upon a time...

There were two crickets

They chirped
(but different songs.)
They watched the sky
(but different corners)

They walked on tiptoes over grass stalks
And occasionally, because they were so busy watching the sky, or chirping, they bumped into eachother.
So it was occasionally a very awkward moment.

But eventually they found a good place to bump into each other
Right above a bed of downy cloverheads
So they could fall right through the grass stalks
And end up watching the stars or other insects fly by
Together

The End

Cricket chirp with a tall grass friend
You're perched too high
Bend down a little lower
Sway a little closer
Share your heart
Make us last
Don't spill the time...

Have a drop of dew
To wet your throat
Can we sing for a bit
Like other times
Soak up the rays
While we soak up us
Call our thoughts out
By and bye...

Once upon a time

There was a very lot of sand
and a very little dune
A sturdy desert man
and a timid little moon

And he pitched a tent
Where the water grew
And the trees came up
And the stars shone through

Though the tent didn't move
As the sand rolled away
And the dune shifted place
As the man paused his stay

He said the dunes may shift so slow
There comes a time to track them down
He said all waters ebb and flow
The time will come to pack and go

Some nights are meant for riding out
The days will come to pull up stakes
The road asks if you're strong enough
Your ready heart is what it takes

Once upon a time...

There was a little house with a sea-view balconey.
Two dragons lived in that house, a red and a blue.
Garnie (whose full name was Garnet) and Saphie (whose full name was Sapphire) were very happy there.
But one day, the sea started calling...
And Saphie started spending more time at the balcony rail.
Or looking out the window.
Or wandering near the river.

Garnie would come out sometimes and put a wing around Saphie's shoulder.
"What are you thinking?" Garnie would ask.
"Mmm..." Saphie might answer absently.

Eventually, the sea called too strong.
Saphie started packing bags.
Garnie would have said something, but the wind had started calling too.
And while it wasn't quite time for Garnie to pack, it would be soon.

When the packing was done, and fond goodbyes were said, Saphie headed to the sea.
Garnie stayed at home, and leaned on the balcony rail alone.
It would soon be time to pack more bags and find the wind roads.

But every so often, the breeze would blow seagulls towards the little house.
And they would call little messages to Garnie from Saphie.
And Garnie would call messages back.
And it was almost the same as having the two friends leaning on the rail again.

The End.

Once upon a time...

There was a heron,
who had three baby herons.
And she and the daddy heron taught them to fly and fish and stand on one leg
Everything a young heron needed to know
And the triplets looked just as normal as the other heron children.

But these three young herons had special parents
With a secret talent.
The parents could speak other languages
So they passed this on to their young ones
And while the little herons grumbled about having to learn different words
(Especially when their friends only had lessons in one language)
This language thing because very useful when they became older

Eventually, as all young herons do, these three grew up and moved away from home
But insteading of building respective nests down the road, up the river, and across the marsh...

One flew to Holland, where herons call, "Goedemorgen!" in the mornings.
And one flew to Poland, where herons greet eachother with, "Dzien dobry!" at noon.
And one flew to France, where herons croon, "Bonne nuit!" at night.

When family reunions happened, every 3 and a half years
(in good heron tradition, of course)
The triplet herons showed up at the family home in greece
And, over the years, brought their own little families of herons
Who enjoyed flying and splashing with the other cousins
As all the grownup herons went around and pecked eachother politely on either cheek in greeting.

But when night came, all the foreign herons tucked in close with their own families
And spoke in their own languages when they said good night.

The end