Stars shone

Nicole Page-Smith

Stars shone

Angels with wings appeared. Surrounding me. We were in heaven that day on the day of angels. Transported. A haven for angels is the sky. Universes of stars tell us of their presence but planets away with the stars communicate with the forest. Angels wings are known to exist in museums nominating the gods and water nymphs of the forest. Occasionally, branches were known to appear to be growing out of statues and covered and surrounded sculptures like they were in a forest. Trees surrounded statues like angels and grew as if revealing the mythology of the heavens and the sky, astronomically. Daphne, Diana and the huntress maid have forests and trees in mind. Light flickering as you walked by had you remember forests and walking. Galloping through, horses and beasts of another kind were jeweled with encrusted reins and maidens ran by with flowers in their hair. A book sent by an angel was the idea in mind. Daphne's roots dirtied the floor.

Branches enveloped the staircase and down into the storey, below. Neglect is a very sad thing but happily overgrown, Daphne felt at home in the greenery and leafy surrounds of the forest allowed to grow through the imagination. Green thoughts are happy ones in the universe of the plant world.

Gods and god sit happily contemplating the Earth, up there in the sky and a little watery on the mind, occasionally even teary eyed with joy with heat showers in Autumn rain, contemplate all the workings of plant life. Communicating away as if through sunshine beaming down on their world they often beam down on ideas, once thought. A garden of ideas at best is very well established in a godly way and thought is a major pastime in the clouds. Ideas drift across.

A monster of an idea for monsters raged the clouds in the equinox of the skies and celestial patterns were observed on very well lit starry nights, beasts were seen and on one side of the world it was Autumn while on the other it was Spring. Monsters, monstrous are quite often an idea and there I found myself on the lower storey contemplating Bernini.

Monsters charged through.

Stars shone.

They said, so

Nicole Page-Smith

They said, so

Chapter 4.

Stones roll over on the stony ground and we walked through the forest that day. Leaves brushed our faces, as limbs were known to do on the tree and bark, way, when forests are not well used. Clearings are known in the forest. There are trees. Birds fly through. We walked that day for several hours along the brook. Flowing streams and running water had animals elephants, wild boar and all variety of fantastical beasts riding with other unknown creatures riding and perhaps I hit my head on a passing bough. Coming to out of a dream of a semi unconscious state, I realized that I was actually in a cathedral, looking at wooden sculptures of St. John and a bird flew through to donate a feather on my lap out of an image of Christ. Coral was the sea and the waves started to lap against the seat and down the churchyard isle, along the awnings and flowers flowed out of the churchyard, all down the street and boats were ready from the ship. With suitcase in hand I had arrived in the forest for the weekend. Tall trees had gathered by the doorway and the entrance was of stone. Stars began to gather in the sky and as night and day passed by, I graced the staircase as though being transported by angels. They sang.

In the forest, trees grew inside the house.

Tree houses were common in the forest but trees containing birds remained outside. Daphne stood in silence while people grew all around her. The house contained wooden furniture and trees lined the walls. Images of trees lined the wallpaper, trees were painted directly onto the walls and tree images were well known to Daphne. Silently as years passed by Daphne walked away, just simply got up and left one day. Red trees were not known in the forest Daphne frequented, so birds were often frightened away. Daphne had grown resplendently in her years in the forest, grown and grown but eventually as the forest grew all around her and died a little, Daphne felt a need for more sunlight. Sculptures and paintings lay in tribute to her but Daphne felt a need for a place less damp than the forest. The little, tree, house was sorely missed by Daphne but the sunlight allowed her to grow and more birds nested in Daphne's branches. Fragrant flowers were well known to Daphne. Other species of Daphne bush were well known for their flowers and Daphne felt contented. 

Daphne is remembered each Spring by the Southern equinox and stars shine down on us that month, the brightest where days are longer than the Sun, everywhere shares darkness and lightness and we are one with God.

Trees are like that, too. Brightness and darkness shines out of them. Shining stars are unto God. Now, when shining stars walk with you, you are blessed. But, when, God walks with you, you are the light of the Sun. Darkness forbades, we are night but not day. We walk in sunshine, we walk in two, we walk in three for the Lord, above. Moons, stars the Sun and the moon planet walk with Venus the moon. Now, when we are three the moon, walks, walking the moon, one is one and one with the moon. Two planets are with us between the Sun. One moon and the Sun are one with the moon. Stars shine down on the leaves of Daphne at night. Through the forest we walk and flying, now that's an angel sort of thing. Angels fly unto thee in the forest for God and they have wings to bear fruit. We are one with the Lord, above. Autumn leaves fall and we walk.

There were angels in the museums, they said, so.

Marble

Nicole Page-Smith

Marble

Birds fly in the forest. When you think of angels they fly like music in a concert, ascends. Angels are synonymous with birds in flight for they are spirit. Spirit flies, flies like the wind of emotions and flies. When we are the flight of genius we hit the soaring roof as though in a chorister of a choir. Trees ascend and grow and cathedrals had trees in mind built as though trees were housed. You may find it strange if when contemplating the Lord, a tree would grow out of the floor, grow up through the church seats and start singing with the birds. Birds sing for God and when you are in the forest trees become your cathedral, swaying gently in the breeze. Birds represent flight and we are reminded of the church and religion. Musical structure plays a part and in flight you are of the patterns of stars, annotating. (To sing is to angel your worth.) Instrumental was the sound of the Baroque. Notes rose in ascension like cathedrals and travelled up the beams like the top of treetops with the birds and angels singing, informing God of the incoming King. Courts and court music, an entertainment, entertains. Oh, the planets and their traverse. Choristers, choirs and choral music, sings and, the musical structure, composed. Many moons have passed since Baroque early music. In libraries of worth, there are angels and they are singing, Vivaldi in heavenly, manuscripts. Forests sing with the birds and feathers occasionally flutter down, gracing the forest floor. An indication of angels is the voice.

 

How strange to grow like trees. Leaves are our friend but oh, the birds, fly. Bees fly to the Bernini fountain in Rome and I fly off with them in Spirit. Flying as if on a beeline to the other side of the city, I am thinking of cathedrals, St. Peter's and Bernini's architecture. Flying as though spirits or bees I fly like a bird inside and around the square and fly off with the pigeons. Flying is my pastime and thinking of angels. God bless the angels by birth. I fly.

Flying is something trees ought not to do.

Running with trees overhead, we fly like the birds but are walking. Walking as though through a forest I find myself in St. Peter's. There is a communion and brides are running, running in white dresses, running. Not Catholic of the church, I wonder and walk on by. Wandering and wondering, I continue towards the river. Churches and churches and thinking of Hellenistic sculpture we continue to more book learned museums. Copies and Roman, Greek legends, you think of what floated up to shore. 

Clouds float on by and you are on the beach. Does it rain?

Raining, you find hidden treasure.

You walk along the beach and are transported. Big container ships are visible in the background. Walking along the beach and only finding the odd tree washed up you are reminded of Daphne.

Watery gods and their knowing, we are thinking of fountains and the Ganges, river god, Rome and its fountains. The odd cat walks on by. Sculpture is something Italy is famous for and the skill of artisans using stone. Marble.

Angels fly

Nicole Page-Smith

Angels fly

Chapter 3.

We are twirled with trills of a musical nature in Baroque Bernini. His artwork came out of a style. Influenced by Roman artists like Michelangelo or growing out of them like a branch out of Daphne's fingers not that Bernini was virginal by birth or born of the Virgin, different styles of influence were as prominent as fashion is today born of the garden. Bernini's early sculptures line the gardens outside where some of the major commissions are housed. Extravagances of style were more to do with architecture and are more remembered by early music still currently played in concert houses. If we think about the structure of music and how the music builds in a composition of Bach, Georg Philipp Telemann or Monteverdi this we get in the internal structure of Bernini starting like Michelangelo's sculpture of David born out of the stone we are reminded of composition. The floral influence of Michelangelo's day would again be an influence of dress sense almost like a style of literature.

Trees grow through my mind and sprout another ascension of growth, elsewhere. You wonder if in some godly universe tree root patterns of the earth alter like a road map from the sky and stars shine down on us at night only to have a moonlit night show the way. We are then with Bach in heaven and realize what a treat heaven must be for God. The angels all fall down around us and we are leaves blowing in the wind.

Angels sing with musical angels. In heavenly ways, we are angels for God, heavenly. Birds fly through as though noisy starlings were their friends and pigeons were their home. Parks and fountains have birds flying, soaring to the sky and you feel like the ancients looking for a message from the sky viewing, ascension. Clouds gather and it is a new day. The distance between the water and the sky are like a well, heeled pattern. Roots dirge in the water and curl around like mangroves, roots all twisted. Torturous water nymphs play naked in the water but are possessed. Crawling out of water like some submerged fish people with scaly legs we too must have once emerged from the water and when did we drop our fishy tail.

Tales of another kind have us back to ancient legends and a mythology. Perhaps it was all just a dream and God is our friend to remind us that once we were, gods of a different ascension. Angels fly away when the musicians go home and birds migrate to another day. Born of another universe, planets all talk of the same sky but universes away we only see the sky with brighter stars. Angels and music are the distance of the sky between the moon and the Sun. Angels speak a different language of the planets in the sky for they are star patterns, too. Trees are there for God. 

Angels fly.

Postcard of Rome

Leaves scatter on by

Nicole Page-Smith

Leaves scatter on by

While trees lose their leaves all winter sitting in contemplation of Spiring and sit there barren with new shoots in mind, evergreens waiver in the breeze. Daphne, oh Daphne, my maid. Sunning herself in Autumn Sun, Daphne thought of the birds. Twittering the birds joyfully sheltered in Daphne, the tree. Daphne thought of Spring and new flowers. The water nymph thought of her watery countenance and the freshwater falling down with the rain, pleased her. Clouds welled up in the sky and the birds were of exuberance of the rain. Twittering so happily, they were, you would wonder why the forest birds liked dirt baths on the forest floor, too. In all resplendent joy of the rain and streaming sunshine the clouds began to cry, gods were almost laughing with joy for the experience, themselves and Daphne felt blessed to be amongst trees in the forest. The birds flew away to spread the news and other trees smiled in the rain. God cries with joy when trees are happy but sometimes the clouds cry when it rains. The light shone that day on Daphne.

In flight in the wind sometimes trees think of past lives as trees, a wooded bliss. Soft bark enveloped her face, the face of Mother Nature. Wind caresses the upper branches of trees and birds almost fly backwards trying to land on them. Walking through the forest you see feathers on the ground, the odd one or two blowing in the wind, dropped by little feathered friends and amongst the tree tops you hear the chatter, alerting you of any dangers, ahead. 

Flight and birds, trees and gods are amongst us always, walking. Flight sometimes wanders through your mind as an idea. Birds fly through the forest and as though you are on wing your ideas fly off with the birds. Sky and clouds make it hard for you to walk on windy days. Weather dependent your ideas become clouds and drift with passing rain. Walking, walking and wondering you enter another universe. The sky is night and the trees are darkened amongst a darkened sky lit night of stars. You wonder what universe trees may come from and are somehow transported with the moon. Clouds light the sky and drift covering the stars and the moon. The trees gently blow in the breeze and you could imagine them thinking of stars, God and their origins with Mother Nature. Born under a planet is a tree sort of thing and you feel the trees thinking about stars racing with comets and shooting stars. You could imagine century old trees having comets passed overhead a couple of times in their lifetime. Stars racing and falling and back to the Seasons with Autumn leaves blowing, you leave the forest and it is daylight, again. A leaf crumbles underfoot and a pigeon flies out of the woods. Stars are lighting your mind and trees are as though they were never there on the surface of the moon, a watery knowing materialises and your thoughts follow a leaf down the stream and water, ripples, by.

Leaves drift on by and blow in the wind. Blowing, blowing in the wind the leaves continue to blow along your pathway. Swirling in the wind, leaves blow on by. Winds howl in from the sea on windy days over mountains and down rivers and you feel like a willow in the wind blowing as though your hair blows like the willow. You wander along roots scudding along the ground, sprouting out of your shoes. Your toes hang out of sandals and your toenails have grown with the roots becoming harder to walk, your shoe leather starts to crack and bend. Wondering if you stay too long in one spot the vines may start enveloping you from the floor, your fingers gnarl up with roots and leaves, cold with the wind, you continue to walk along and realise winter is fast approaching. The woods seem distant and in a museum trees bash against the window and you realise you are in a cafe eating soup and bread with perfumed herbs. Postcards of trees settle your mind once again your mind drifts with falling leaves. Your mind wanders to underwater coral, branches of the sea and you are reminded of images of Christ with red beads and branches of coral. Wearing red you are reminded of branches of the heart and a lock of hair falls down your shoulder. Leaves scatter on by. 

Existing, mmm...

Nicole Page-Smith

Existing, mmm...

Chapter 2.

Street cats walk by and as I passed several fountains, I entered my forest. 

Climbing to the top of the tree in my mind to become the treetops, I fluttered

down with the pigeons. Walking, through the forest, I encountered my feet, they had roots and slowly organic matter started to grow out of my toenails as 

earth oozed through my toes. 

Climbing up the trunk of my imaginings, I encountered bark on my chest.

Stars call your name in the night and gargoyles register in your mind as if eves of 

churches were creatures of the night. Some painted churchyard frescoes or

mosaic floors suggest Christ. A long, history of Roman, sculpture, have you

thinking of Ovid and early writings. You are eating spaghetti carbonara. Walking you find you are growing, sprouting leaves start appearing under your jumper 

but your coat fits you better.

Leaves start growing from your hair, sprouting from your ears but you look at 

the baggage check in attendant and they do not seem to notice. Putting the bag in

the locker was difficult for roots were starting to grow out your hands and buckle up your fingers, lacing into your toenail, roots. 

Entwining the staircase, you appear pursued by not Apollo but throngs of 

tourists and again you enter the room of Bernini's Apollo and Daphne sculpture.

Becoming Daphne, I entered my forest again. Bark enveloped my feet and the 

stars lit my upper branches along with the moon. Planets revolved around the 

ceiling and I found myself in the cafe reading a book. Some crumbs had fallen on

the table and I was reminded of the earth of the forest floor. Cats wandered by

out the window. Leaves were falling and it was Autumn but the sky was bright on

a sunny day amongst the trees. Libraries of imaging and manuscripts of Bernini were as the metamorphoses and you felt as the sculptures, chiselled.

Oh, the forest. Leaves fell to the ground. In the forest, creatures and animals live

there, wild boar, scurry and roam, through. There are phantoms of the night but

they do not share the night with the ghosts. Water nymphs have a watery 

existence. Transformation is imminent, there were three on a dreaded night, the 

moon was shining and we were the stars in heaven. The planets between the 

Earth and the Sun were Jupiter, Mars and another planet blocked out because of 

the Sun. An eclipse occurred and then there were comets like a meteorite shower

all like fallen stars falling like leaves on the ground, the river flowed. Water

nymphs and their leaves, the Holy Virgin saw a dreaded night. No birds dared

enter the forest. There was a blackened night and the moon sung along with the 

clouds in the sky. The starless night was one with the Lord, above.

Stars, oh stars oh. Monsters raced and trespassed through in the clouds above

the sky. Patterns were there but oh, the literature and their gods all

representative in the sky. There were sky maps and charts. Oh, bibles nominated another language. Stones of old chipped away the block. Philosophers became

books of literature and they were in the becoming, a beckoning of the Lord,

above and all number of former gods and religions referred to the same, Aeneid.

Stars shone at night. When the stars shine at night you are shining with the moon

and are one with the gods, the divine angels and the planets, all spinning around, 

the Earth. Now, Earth was a shining. When the shining Earth originally rose out of the universe we were one with the Lord. The Earth was born like a Sun. Suns 

and moons have not always been frequent in our Universe but a many moons

ago, the Sun was born and accumulating energy is almost what the Earth does,

spinning. Does the Sun move in our Universe? You could imagine many moons 

and Suns have expired over the centuries of light years but where did they go?

The moons and the Sun like Earth appear to accumulate energy, hence our

existence, we were born from the energy from the moon and Sun. Ah, moons and

the Sun. We are almost like plant life but consume our energy differently. When

the Earth runs out of water, we will still exist.

Existing, mmm...

Gian Lorenzo Bernini, 

The Blessed Ludovica Albertoni, 1671-1674 

S. Francesco a Ripa, Altieri Chapel, 

Rome

The streets of Rome

Nicole Page-Smith

The streets of Rome

Chapter 1.

Gods frequent, there.

Thinking of old literature and places, home to the gods, you can imagine unknown to us for the imagination of the authors of the books has long since, gone, the gods still live there, unseen and seldom worshipped. Gods frequenting, Mt. Olympus, for example, whereas tourists you walk amongst the ruins. Delphi is one such place and gods appear to be present in images. Dreams and memories drift on by. Forests are visited, you remember the sunset, views of the Acropolis from the hotel windows, strong coffee not Greek, woman as predominant as Greek plays and tragedies with heavy makeup, seething.

Forests often walked through. Greek legends and Roman mythology take you in pursuit of water nymphs. Gods fly through as if on winged heel and you enter another realm. Godly and slightly battered, wings torn, you recover strength.

Walking through the forest, you encounter Bernini. The forest of imaginings has you blessing the earth with each step. Walking through museums has snaky headed gods approach you amongst philosophers, emperors and warriors, all figures from literature. Hellenistic in style or copies of the ancient Greek, philosophy and origins of Western culture demonstrate the history of monuments on display. Architecture has you building and towering and thinking of Michelangelo, too, maybe better known to the Romans for his architecture.

Bernini has us building architecture with his sculpture and quite often all around it, monuments, monumental and tombs for the sarcophagi. Churches, once visited, Autumn leaves in the street. Walking, I continue to walk.

The Autumn leaves stir under my feet and fall. Still warm from Summer Sun, Rome, continues to wander through my mind.

Wandering, the leaves tend to wander and blow along in the wind. Of clouds and wandering the wind blows. Trees talk away to nature and the wind. In the forest they blow around and the noise has an eerie silence about it. Blowing, you become wind amongst the treetops only to fall down to the ground with the leaves, there is a protective feeling and the leaves nestle in for the winter. Blowing the wind becomes spirit, the spirit wind blows and to become tree is an act of nature. Nature blows with the wind.

The gods answer your call and you are taken back to the streets of Rome.