Analysis of ballad of a dew drop

Remnants of a fading Dream

Array me in colors of old. Robe me in thoughts of which I know naught.

The sun’s rays crept across the kitchen floor as a child sat eating her breakfast. Outside, the flowers swayed to a morning breeze while birds welcomed the new day. But this wasn’t just any day…

Casey (for that is the name of the child) tried to shake off a cloud of darkening thoughts as she scooped another spoon of cereal into her mouth.
“Is my munchkin ready?” mother called from the hallway. Coming into the kitchen, a young woman with hair matching her hazelnut eyes sat down to some coffee.
“Do we have to go?” Casey whined as she looked out the window, trying to hide the tears she felt welling up inside. She had hoped against all hopes that this day would never come…but here it was!

Mum got up to clear the dishes away while Casey went to look at her room one last time. Suddenly, she couldn’t hold it anymore. Opening the back door, she fled into the trees behind their house. She could hear the voice of her mother calling after her but only one thought ran through her mind:  Freedom!

Shadows come cover this bleeding wound
Take from my eyes this endless mist
Melt the cold hands that hold my heart
For life no longer within me lives

As she ran deeper and deeper into the woods, thoughts of the past couple years fell in upon her. She remembered standing in the church where the coffin of her father lay. She remembered the day she had spent with him before the accident. They had gone to the park and fed the pigeons. He had been saying something about how pigeons and doves are both the same kind of bird. He had smiled and she knew that she was his dove.
  Suddenly, she came upon a clearing she had never seen before. It looked almost as if it had once been a garden. Then it happened. One moment, she was walking into the sunlit grove, the next moment, all was dark.
"Welcome," spoke a voice in front of her.
Casey stared into the darkness, trying to make out a shape, anything. The voice spoke again, this time deeper and louder, "Welcome, my child!"

A flame sputtered to life and lit a candle. The apparition of an old man with a wrinkled face grew in the light of its glow. From the look in his eyes, Casey felt as if she was the first human he had ever seen. Without further ado, he turned and began walking away.
“Where are you going,” Casey called after him, but he seemed not to take notice. Casey decided she could do nothing but follow.
 After some time, the darkness around them gave way to a faint light. That’s when she saw it. Ahead of them, a star was beginning to rise on the horizon. Or was it the sun? The ball of fire was getting much closer and bigger but still not any hotter. That’s when the man suddenly walked right up to it and stepped inside. She took a deep breath and stepped in after him.     
  They were passing through a corridor of intense light as if they were in a sea of fire. What happened next may be hard to describe but the man in front of her changed. One minute he was an old man with a candle, the next, a prince with a sword.  Casey gasped as the light around her opened into a countryside filled with flowers as far and wide as the eye could see.

City with no Walls

Emerald sunlight infiltrating trees of a leafless forest floor
Moss eaten stones smile in reflection

“Where are we?” Casey gasped.
“We’re in the garden, the City with no Walls,” he answered.
“But where’s the city?” Casey was about to ask when he turned and grabbed her hand. Together they shrunk till they were about the size of ants.  
“The City, the garden!” he repeated as they now looked up at a city made up of flower buildings. Here and there curious creatures, some animal, some insect, some human, rushed in and out of the flowers while others flew about on their wings. Casey felt a thrill rush up her spine as unique smells and sounds bombarded her.
“And now you are probably in need of drink. Let’s go to this sunflower.”
“Sunflower?” Casey wondered out loud as he walked towards a towering flower.
“Don’t tell me you’ve never tasted sunflower nectar before!” he added in a disbelieving tone.
  Following him, they began climbing up stairs that wound around its stem, arriving on a balcony at the top filled with all sorts of creatures drinking from long tubes. Upon closer inspection, she observed straws inserted into the floor. Smiling, the prince said, “Take a sip. I bet you’ve never tasted anything like it.”
 Bending down to an empty straw, Casey saw that beneath them was a room with many creatures filling or changing glasses which had been emptied by the straws. Curiously, she took a sip from her straw. The taste was that of the sweetest juice with a thickness as that of honey.
Three glasses later, her stomach was surprisingly full.
“Well,” the prince asked raising his eyebrows?"
“It’s delicious!”
“Then, you will be ready to go,” he answered.
“Go where?” Casey asked.

But instead of answering, he took her to the middle of the flower where a slide wound itself around the inside the stem. “This will take us to the roots where the river-train runs,” he said letting out a whoop before he jumped in the hole. Taking his cue, Casey let out her own “Yippee!” before plunging in after him.

The River Train

O silent brook have I undone
The winding path that you begun
As in the sea you drown my worries
And I in you my thirst do bury

Out they popped on an underground platform beside which a river of moon water ran. On the river itself were what seemed to be thick clouds of vapour rising in various shapes and sizes.
“Well go ahead,” the prince said leading her to a cloud that looked like an armchair.
“You want me to sit on it?” Casey gasped.
“Yes, it’s one of the ways we travel here,” replied the prince.
The cloud bobbed invitingly like an apple in a barrel.
“It will take you home,” the prince added mysteriously. After a slight bit of hesitation, she took a step forward. The cloud supported her weight as if it were a trampoline! The prince beamed a smile then waved her on as he spoke the magic word, “Lacastranostre.”
  From out of nowhere, a warm wind picked up and sent the cloud drifting down the river. Before she could look back to say goodbye, she had turned a corner and entered a narrow winding tunnel.  As her eyes adjusted to the glow of the river and its shimmering reflection on the cavern walls above, she began hearing music. Songs, one after another, broke softly upon her like waves from a foreign yet familiar ocean of memories. Then the river burst out into the brilliant sunlight.
 Casey gasped as a gust of fresh wind lifted her cloud off into the air. Up, up and over the country the little cloud floated, leaving the river below and soaring into the sky.
After drifting over what seemed like endless fields, it lowered itself and finally came to a rest on a patch of heather.  
  Looking about, Casey saw a little dip in the ground ahead. Maybe she would be able to find a river or a path to follow. She was about to get up when a voice behind startled her:
“Hello.”
 Turning around, she caught sight of a little girl standing not a few feet away. Seeing that she had been spotted, she ran ahead as if playing tag. Chasing after her, Casey ran to the hollow and saw that at its bottom lay a little brown cottage. The girl ran up to it, entered and within seconds emerged with an old woman.
“Welcome!” the old woman called, “What can I do for Florencia of the high palace?”
“My name is Casey,” replied Casey, “and I didn’t mean to bother you.”
“Who then knocked at my door?” asked the woman.
“She did…” but as Casey turned to point to where the girl had stood- she had vanished!

In Dreams We Meet

You call time “father” and earth “mother” but the place I am taking you knows neither.

The old woman was cooking something over the fire as Casey awoke from what seemed a long sleep. Turning her head to the right she saw the reflection of someone in a mirror. The girl that had vanished stared back at her!
“Good morning Florencia,” came the woman’s voice from over by the fireplace.
“What happened to me?!” Casey gasped jumping out of bed.
“You just woke up.”
“No I mean how did I become the little girl?”
“Oh,” replied the woman smiling. “You must have been dreaming. Here have some soup.”
Casey sat down on one of the wooden tree stumps around a rough wooden table in the center of the hut. As the soup touched her tongue the prince’s parting words ran through her mind:  “It will take you home.”
“Is this my home?” Casey asked turning to the woman.
“It is,” replied the woman.
“Then where is my other body?”
“Where it always is.”
“Where?”
“You are in it.”
“But I never looked like this.”
“You never looked in my mirror either. You have been granted what few are, a chance to see your world as it truly is, starting with yourself.”

Ah, the music of one’s life… I often wonder what it will sound like. Would it start out strong and end softly, would it scamper along like a cheerful brook or toss to and fro like a ship lost at sea?

The first days after awakening were a thrill as Casey came to discover her new or rather older self as the woman taught her. Even her name had changed - Florencia.
 In the past, she, as Casey, had been used to choosing her own road. For the first time, here was a journey she had not chosen – yet which felt like the first right choice she had ever made. The freedom it brought felt like the quiet rain after a storm.
  Dreams, visions, and thoughts floated around her as real as the clouds in the sky. Were there actually people traveling in them as she had? Places she had dreamed of as a child seemed to grow right in front of her.  
 “Florencia?” a clear voice drifted up to her from the basement below.
  “Where are your clothes?” the old woman sang.  
  “Coming?” Florence answered and with a quick toss of her body, ran down the stairs with a worn set of clothes. Not that they were dirty... No - here it was a matter of washing things in a new potion.
“Why don’t you go outside and explore while I experiment?" said the woman taking her old clothes and handing her a gown that looked like it was made of flower petals.

Taking her advice, she skipped out of the valley and into a meadow full of wild flowers. Though they were not the gigantic size they had been in the city, they still seemed larger and more alive than any she had ever seen in her other world. Here and there flowers beckoned to be picked but as soon as she had a bundle in her hands there was no one to give them to so she returned to the cottage.
“O thank you!” the old woman praised, “but why are your eyes wet?”
“It’s all so beautiful,” Florencia blurted out. Laying the flowers in a bowl of water, the woman sat her on her lap and began to sing: “Long ago in a faraway land…”
  When Florence woke again, she had no memory of falling asleep but plenty of questions. “What would it be like if I had never entered this world?” Florence asked the old woman.
“Now finally you are beginning to see things from outside their shell,” the woman answered. “What if you had never entered your other world? Questioning as such, led you on the path to this star in the first place. Your longing for more prompted the prince to meet you. Oh Florence, if only you knew what brilliant light burst from you the moment you found your own darkness, your own utter nothingness!” Images of planets, galaxies and stars flooded Florence’s mind and sucked the breath from her lungs, “Oh!”
“But you must wander,” continued the woman, “to find. Off you go.” And with that she pushed Florence out the door again.
 This time she spied a giant butterfly and followed his path. Soon she was running on her own through field upon field of flowers delighting in their unselfish fragrance.

O flower, where do go when night closes your petals?
Show me the field where you dream...
That each of my blossoms may bloom eternal.

Suddenly, in the distance, a man appeared. He seemed to be hoeing the ground. He kept at it until she stood right next to him.
"Excuse me-" Florence blurted out. "I'm sorry to disturb you, but what might you be growing?”
"No, no –don’t apologize… Sorries are no needed here by nobody. O, sorry- I guess I didn’t introduce myself! I'm the gardener of this here wilderness," the small man said extending his free hand with a chuckle. "Anyway, these here are lilies but that’s neither here nor there," he added. “What I’m growing is deworlds. Every human that has ever existed and will ever exist on your earth is here. To be more precise, they are what’s inside each flower. A dew drop.”
Florencia stepped forward. “A dew drop? How is that?”
“Well, if life is measured by time where you come from, here it is measured by water.”
“Does that mean I’m here as well?”
With a sudden burst of laughter the man replied “You are in your dew world!”
  Looking closer at a flower, Florence recognized the old woman’s cottage in its dew drop. Thinking of the gardener’s words she asked, “How come the cottage is here in this dew drop then? I thought you said I already was in my own dew world.”
“Well now” the gardener hummed “all of the worlds are connected at some point, this one especially. It belongs to someone close to you. I could let you go inside if you like…” and before she knew it, she had entered the dew world.    
  There she was, standing where she had first landed in front of the old woman’s cottage. Only this time, the entrance was on the opposite side. After knocking, the door opened and she entered to find a huge hallway with mirror upon mirror lining the walls. At the end of the hallway, a stairwell spiraled to a second floor at the top of which stood what at first looked like the old woman. As she began climbing the staircase, however, the woman standing at the top seemed to get smaller with every step. Or younger. That’s when her heart stopped. “Mum?”
She leapt up the last few stairs, the image of her mother growing younger still.  “Mum, I never thought I’d see you as a child,” she said, giving her a hug.
“Why not? You saw me as an old woman.”
“But you were always older.”
“No, not here. Here things are what they are in truth. But hush child, there is someone else who wants to see you.”
With that she opened a further door and led her up another flight of stairs. There, on the top step was a small door which flung open. A bright light flashed and out walked a child shorter than either of them. Upon his head he wore what looked like a party hat or a paper crown.
“Hello Florencia,” he laughed. “That is your name now isn’t it?”
“Well, I guess that’s the name I’ve been given. And might I also know your name?” Florencia replied.
The child giggled as though she had asked why the sky is blue. “Sorry, I thought you knew. You were my flower while I was on that ball of dust we call earth. I gave you your old name, Casey.”
“Dad?”
A smile broke across the boy’s face as radiant as the sun. “I don’t hold that title anymore but you may use it if you like. Come now, don’t cry.”
But Florencia couldn’t hold back the tears.

Every changing season is the beginning of a new era.

When the tears finally cleared she was back in the field of lilies. The gardener was nowhere in sight so she turned to walk back to the cottage. Seeing the old woman outside picking herbs, she ran up and gave her a kiss.
“What’s this then?” the woman croaked in surprise.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Florencia retorted.
“Tell you what?” the woman answered.
“Oh mother,” Florencia said thinking she was playing a game.
“Well, that’s a new one for me. I’ve been called many names but not that one.”
“But I was in your dew world…” Florence’s voice drifted off.
“Dew what?”
Florencia realized that the old woman was serious.
“Haven’t you been in the field of lilies with the gardener?” she tried again.
“Well, I know about the lilies and have met the gardener. In fact, he visits my cottage quite often but he’s never shown me these dew worlds.”
“Would you like him to?” Florencia asked getting excited.
“If you think he’ll let me.”
“Oh, I know he will!" Florencia answered.

Bringing the old woman with her to the field of lilies they saw the gardener approaching.
“Gardener!” Florencia called out.
The man beamed a wide smile, “Why if it isn’t Florencia and her mother! I’m sorry madam for not telling you sooner but Florencia of the high place was sent to you because she is your daughter.”
The old woman looked surprised, then joyful.
“But what is this I hear about worlds of dew?”
“Ahh,” replied the gardener “Do you think you want to enter your own?”
“I would like to if you think it’s ok,” replied the woman.
“I do,” he said and with that he breathed onto the woman until she started growing younger and younger...

The night sky is littered with flowers disguised as stars,
Rivers disguised as auroras dancing to oceans of darkness-
Where the moon ship makes its voyage to the land of light
Wherein spans a bridge from heaven to earth disguised as a rainbow.

Back on earth, mother was getting anxious. She had been waiting for Casey to return thinking she had only run out to say goodbye to the woods she had often played in. She began walking into the trees.
It was noon by the time she reached the clearing. To her eyes, the garden looked like a picture she had once seen in a children’s book of a well in the middle of an enchanted forest.
Then she heard it. It was the melody of a lullaby her mother had sung to her as a child. This time however, it sounded as if an orchestra was playing it. Then she was in the middle of it: a procession of kings and queens walking towards the well and climbing into it. One of them looked in her direction and waved for her to follow. As if in a dream, she walked up to the rim. The water began to draw open revealing crowd upon crowds of onlookers. With thunderous applause, they cheered as she climbed in.

Stepping out on the other end, the gardener greeted her.
“Queen Gracia! So glad you made it!” he said as he gave her his hand and led her to a table that seemed to grow as soon as she was seated. And as it grew in length, so did the names of them that were called to sit themselves around it. But as they seated themselves, she realized no one was eating. There was a ritual before the food: the presenting of gifts. She looked about at the ornaments, jewels, bouquets and treasures others had brought. She had never imagined the beauty of some of the gifts. She fumbled for something, anything. Before she could think of a gift to give, a curtain lifted and an orchestra appeared. A cloak of silence wrapped itself around the guests as they looked on in anticipation. Springing from behind the curtain, the gardener raised his hoe and with a wave, the music began.
  Dust was formed into a ball and from the dust the first gift was formed- He. And from He the second gift was given- She. And even before the ball rolled on, the prince received the King’s orders to give his life as a gift for them with a simple "I do." All who watched thought they knew the story yet how wrong they were! For as each event unfolded and as every life was played, the prince himself got up and walked amongst each scene.
  The gifts that each had eagerly been wishing to present at the banquet were received in full then and there. He himself had been Florencia finding refuge in her cottage. He had been the boy at the top of her stairs. He was the widow sitting in the kitchen with a cup of coffee. He had received every unkind word ever spoken as well as every unselfish act ever done.
  When the music finally ended, Gracia lifted her gaze. Had she heard right? Catching her falling thoughts in his hands, the king looked directly at her and