May Bird Among the Stars

Over the ten years since she'd been born, the trees of Briary Swamp, West Virginia, had peered through May's window night after night. They had watched over her thoughtful brown eyes, the imaginative crook of her head, the strong character of her knobby knees. The trees had laughed at the jokes May told her cat. Their leaves had whispered over her wild inventions, her colorful stories, her drawings.

The Lady shrugged nonchalantly. "You're a hider. Thats what you're thinking. And you're right." May swallowed and nodded, feeling very small. The Lady kneaded her wrinkled hands. "What you are hiding from the most, my dear, is that you are none of those things you are so afraid of being - cowardly, weak, small. You aren't afraid to know you're afraid. And you're most afraid that you're stronger than you know.

One by one they dissapeared Pumpkin last of all. The last May saw of himwas his sad face under his waving tuft of hair and then his long fingers,reaching out toward her for a hug that would never happen now as they turned around the bend.

may yes can you carry me asked pumpkin No

Don't forget about the stardust. Don't forget about the quartz rocks in the woods. You are small. But you are also so much more.

Friends, she had realized, could make you do that. Forget the things that worried you most.

We are just stardust after all.

But the outsider in May, the one from Briery Swamp who had never fit quite right, kept her tucked safely in her nook.

She actually liked the idea that she might be made out of stars.

Others wonder, if the Bogey isn’t wearing his pants, who is?

That is what all creatures great and small are made of. Leftover stardust. An atom exploded, and all the dust became the planets, the stars...and us. That's all anything amounts to.