Take this kiss upon thy brow

And, in parting from you now

This much let me avow

You are not wrong, who deem

That my days have been a dream

For if time and hope have flown away

In a life, or in a day

In a vision, or in none

Is it therefore the less gone?

Everything we see or seem

Is but a dream within a dream

--Edgar A. Poe

This tale is my last. Tomorrow I die, yet I shall return. Death is not the end, but a beginning. I will face the fire as I have always faced my pain, with pride and faith. This tale is my last, but only in this life. I will come to write many more. Sometimes I look back as far as forever, to where it all began. There have been many wise teachers in my existence. Some I have met again. Some I will not see until the end of days. I have been called by many names, and many more will come.

I remember the lament I sang, for my own tale is woven within…

Moonlight in my hair, and stars upon my brow
I whirled with what grace my spirit would allow
dancing to the music that welled up from the ground
in the trees, on the breeze, without making any sound
unmarred as the stars in their crystalline delight
with their light in my eyes, enthralled by the night
yet sadly my sorrow, like these waves, begins to ebb
as I was sadly tangled in fate's wicked web
and from out my heart this pain I doth pour
as I lay lifeless upon the sounding shore
my unseeing eyes into nothing doth stare
with death in their glass, and the light upon my hair
yet this is unreal, this maid's no longer me
she who lies in her demise in the tide of the sea
and now I lay drowned in my watery bed
so that any who found me would sure think me dead
no stars are bound on my pallid brow
yet released from life's bonds, I am happy now
and, though to many, sorrow it'd seem
I finally realize I'd been living a dream
and so from this earth I have seemingly past
I smile, for a while, life's conquered at last.

Burnished silver now is grey
as life and laughter fade away
scarlet leaves flame forth and fall
surrendering to winters call
and amid winters bleeding river
there I lie, and will forever
red as blood and fire, red as autumn dying
red as my bleeding heart as into the forest I went flying
red was the sky that fateful evening
as I laid me down and died
through the pain and sorrow
and the many tears I'd cried
for I had lost my reason
for remaining on this earth
‘twas at last the final day I'd awaited since my birth
so far from my memory, so sad my heart had grown
as the day died, I went with it,
so it would not die alone
like a phoenix amidst it's ashes
my eyes are glass beneath my lashes
as they doth gaze into the west
where the noble, fair, and best
have gone to their eternal rest.

More will be added when dawn rises.

I am not afraid, though. They cannot stop me, they cannot change who I am.

One day, I will return to the garden, and  I will say, "I have come forth in this day time in my true form as a living spirit. The place of my heart’s desire is among the living in this land…forever."* Until that moment, here I must remain, as long as time is.

 I wish all of you a blessed life of light and love.

Forever remember,

Flanna O’Shea

*If you guessed that that came from the "Book of coming forth by Day from Night", you are correct!