From BN to home - December

Memories walking in the snow. Cold flakes, piercing winds and little daggers making love to my face. Layers wrapped and wringing around my body, swaddled like a baby sleepwalking a cold dream. Warm thoughts tumble across my head, fold themselves around my hearth.

The trees are talking to me. Their old bones shiver and creak, roots creep slowly to homes they 're claiming for spring – strong, toughened travellers – their trunks twisting in a promise toward the distant summer light. On the wind: My lips feel the tips of their branches. Against the walls in my head, rough & tender bark pressed to warm skin. My legs trod along, steady and possessed.

A bridge, a road, the trees, rivers sweeping around the hollow turned ground, the world sways like ships at sea; the earthworms and rolly-pollies till 'round the earth, ingest it, give it back.... my mind slips toward melting spring. I feel hidden life just beyond my sister's skin, just below my mother's surface. heart beating faster. Smiles come over me. I am hearing weathered earth woman, death moving – the crone brushes past just out of eyesight. I feel the warmth of rotting corpses on her breath, cold leafpacked layers cover her skin. Does she kiss me?

...And then I break through –a PUSH. I am here. NOW. Sloughed free. I am happy. I am trodding heavy-footed through the snow. It falls on my face. And I am warm. My heart pounds faster, and my mouth feels full of the red beating heart of the world.

I break a stride. Green-ness is bending inside trees, baby sisters stretching out little muscles, reaching with their fingertips. Watercress in my teeth: lift my tongue to the plate and the old man is there – he sees me, I see him. Shots of fear, fear and love, beating bloody hearts & my gaping chest. Out of the trees in his old spot he materializes and is just as soon gone. My chest heaves and hums a prayer for him – What would he say if he could be here? – and my heart is beating faster still. A small crosscurrent kisses my lips, then he is gone and I am in the short stretch. I smell home.

Gingerbread, warm chicken broth, anise, cardamom, and marjoram. More swiftly as I float through the snow, my feet warmer than before. Cinnamon. I feel warm all over. Friend hands pull me closer like a hemp cord at my chest. Sage and burnt lemon. Birds are singing: I'm incredulous they're here so thick into winter. curious. wholly accepting . I round the corner to where the squirrel sat in the red berry bush – a good place to remember.

then I'm back. right here: my feet feel my feet that were here before. Little siblings greet me then go away, kiss my cheek, squeeze my arms. My eyes lift loose & light down the road – sun on water – further than I will go today; my tongue & jaw are heavy & loose. My tempted heart foolishly lashes a tie one way, arms drag me another, pelvic back and legs seem to stay behind AND press ahead. I am torn a million directions.

STOP.

For a moment I am the epicenter, a frozen world, small burst of wind pushing against the gust. And as my arms point and swing, pumping, the world resumes. I alight the stairs, grab the old handle, welcome the key, and slip in.

Hello again, Kiki.
How's tricks?

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Wrote this feeling warm & fuzzy one morning in bed not long after the fact with some help from the good cookies.