myth for purple crabgrass

An icon was commissioned by a patron of the arts in the city of emmer because none of the grassmen could stop talking about “the queen who speaks the words of the sun goddess.” Rebecca never left Sola’s side, and it was not long before she started to hear the root quietly speak, in the voice of the sun queen. The grass men continued their rituals and had the people in the limestone quarry work all the time. They still went out early and worshipped to the sun. They still built towers, but out of kudzu lianas.

There she is, depicted as a saint, a thin woman. Her skin opalescent as if she had never once been outside. Her hair the color of a stone. Delicate vines curl around her neck and weave into her hair. It shrouds her as she whispered, an endless conversation with a root that she held in her hands, that twine its tendrils into her skin so they became one being. The painting did not portray the years of loneliness Rebecca had endured except the wall, hard and cold behind her.

Rebecca had become incredibly thin. Her voice became thin as well. She could only be heard if a wind was heading in one’s direction. But her presence was felt with as fervor. In the image she wore a dress so green it was nearly black, woven with such a fine fiber it fits like skin.

In the portrait see how her sallow mouth is closed, though only slightly leaning her head to listen to the iguleni, read to speak its messages occasionally with a near smiling mouth, speaking. Behind her are smudges as the painter attempted the shifting forms of the undead who Rebecca employed as her maid servants. They loved her. She could speak them. They were wild though silent, nearly floating and fast. They melted and then turned to rock. They braided each other’s hair. They would do anything for Rebecca. They taught the grass men to dig their bodies into the soil like worms and when they came out they crabgrass would grow there. The ugly twin of emmer - and it kept growing - and it broke up the field making patches of the wheat.

And so she built a gate of grass, needles, and pawpaw seeds. The artist portrait it out the window on a pristine fields of emmer. The painter did not add the green of choking vines or the patchwork of crabgrass.

She built this gate that when Ivy returned. She had a plaque made along the top: Ivy will subdue all of the grassmen and become the king of them.

She didn’t live to see the painting complete, which is why the artist never finished her eyes. One cannot tell if they are open or closed.

Her glory was short lived in the eyes of the grassmen. They started to speak among themselves: “Look how the root has become part of her hands.” They whispered. “Isn’t it strange how the queen just disappeared one day? The one who speaks to sun goddess must be a murderer. Worse. A sorceress. She is the reason for all of our ill luck - the kudzu. Look how our emmer suffers and we are hungry.