'Summer Child'

This is the first piece from Maiden — a collection still becoming itself, still learning its own name. It begins here, with the flowers of early summer that are all white and all quiet and all somehow more complicated than they look. Lily of the valley, which smells like the first warm morning and is also extremely toxic, as many of the most beautiful things are. Privet blooms, which no one notices until they notice them. Queen Anne’s lace, which has already appeared in this collection under a different name, because some plants earn their repetition. Artemisia, which is silver-green and medicinal and has been used in everything from absinthe to artemisinin.

The dark resin is not absence of color. It is depth. It is what happens when summer goes far enough into itself that the light changes. The pendant holds what was gathered at that exact moment, suspended.

Maiden begins. This is its first word.

For the one at the beginning of something she cannot yet name.