Her great-grandmother’s stories were rich with mystery and magic.

How water flowing from her pitcher produced miraculous fruit that, when ripe, picked itself and hovered in sultry summer air.

How each fruit cut themselves open revealing thousands of seeds providing sustenance to a hungry world.

How each day a different flower grew upon her dress, from wild poppy to cultured rose.

How gooseberries, if picked under-ripe, snapped and hollered, like a gaggle of angry geese.

How the red fox was her scarecrow, chasing marauding locusts from her fields of lavender.

Each story was a window into the fertile mind of a feeble-in-body-only old woman.

Her life force spent toiling in furnace-hot sun, bringing forth life from desolate, sere ground.

Now, she planted seeds in the imagination of her great-granddaughter; cycle of nature and nurture begun anew.

Composed for mlmm writing prompt 205 – special collage