I chose not to follow crows today,
but turned away
to follow the mist instead,
descending down a rocky hill
and into an underworld of my own making,
in which I laid aside
the pressures of pleasantness
and considered how it would feel
to lay my drive down
across the stones too
and walk away,
leaving it gasping in surrender
between a flattened cracker of frog
and finality.
I knelt beside blue chicory
with a cloak of white fog across my shoulders
feeling weary of smiling,
thin of patience,
and with only a thread of faded magic
beating feebly beneath my skin.
I pondered messages from purple asters,
gravel beneath my knees,
and resisted reaching for rosehips
through the ebbing bowers of poison ivy.
An unripe persimmon, gleaming purple-red
below the bright white sky,
rolled into my path
and as I made my way back up the hill
two vultures rose silent and hulking from the trees,
so close I heard their feathers whispering together.
I felt an ember quicken quietly
beneath my breast
and on the gliding motion of broad wings,
I was reminded that we can always
choose which way to go,
and that even thin and tattered magic
is worth
savoring.
-
Molly, That's really nice. Thanks for sharing! Life is hard...it's only a cliche because it's true.