Filling the Urn by Joseph Immel She floated like a fairy in the green wood, reappearing in and between shadows of dark coal, between the water running and streams weeping deep in the forest wood. As she sits, settling like mist falls to the earth, speaks, "I could not hear what you were saying," but her words washing over me; I couldn't imagine pink lips like that, doves floating in the leaves of the trees, the sound of clouds moving through an old forest. I couldn't believe nature was still innocent despite all of her experience. Then I looked at my hands and saw that they were grabbing mouthfuls of mud and roots of grasses. I half expected the ghost to disappear then, for the clouds to condense. Or I thought she would kiss me, and just thinking about it I was grabbing bigger handfuls of earth. Then she spoke to me about death, and giggled with uncertainty, talked about a forest nymph. her lips turned to white, and she became water again. But I felt her there in the air, filling a large earthenware urn, and then I looked at my feet and saw that I was standing on old stones covered in moss, ferns, snails, and laurel. I left, carrying this forest with me into the train, covering my bare feet with soil from the bark of trees. I watched you through the window.