There’s a girl with ribbons in her hair
Red and yellow and blue so fair!
She makes her way down each day
From the little blue house, by the forest way
With bright eyes and rosy cheeks
To the old swing by the creek.
And there she’ll sit, in the shadow of an oak
And she’ll talk with her friends — the finch and the dove.
Once I asked her what she did.
How she knew the language that so few did.
She looked at me with a smile,
“Oh, it does take a while.
“But be quiet, be still, and just listen.
For birds are patient if you’ll only listen.”
In the winter I saw her once again,
Swinging back and forth and singing of wrens.
She looked taller now, her eyes less bright
And her pretty ribbons were out of sight.
I dared one last question to ask
As I stood there in the dying grass.
“You had so many ribbons in your hair
Which color did you love best to wear?”
She thought for a moment and then she said
“The one that i loved best was red.”
And then the girl slowed down the swing
“Farewell, for I am going.”
“Going where?”
“I don’t know where.”
The look she gave me was sad
But as she walked away, she looked also glad.
Towards the sky and wind and snow
Towards the lands that even I don’t know.
I never saw that girl again
Nor heard her singing with the wrens.
And though of her no one speaks a word
I like to think she’s with the birds.
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