Before the wonderbird came, nobody had ever spoken to the mountain. She rose proud and lonely out of the sea, slopes too rocky to grow anything but squat junipers and tenacious mosses. The mountain did not have dreams or worries. Year after year, water and wind gnawed at her body.
The wonderbird came at night, fast as a shooting star and more luminous. No bird had ever touched the mountain before; she rose too far from migratory paths. But the wonderbird alighted on her southern slope and put his bright gold head under a wing to rest. And the mountain felt, watching him, a stirring of rocks deep within.
So for the very first time, she asked a question. The sea breeze whistled her words through a narrow gorge: “Where do you come from, bird?”
