At Last In The Presence Of Stones

 

This wee story is a followup to the one I wrote months ago, linked here.

*O*

My husband’s black eyes glitter in the flickering firelight. His back is straight.  He gives nothing to age that he can keep.  His hair is long and white and free like a man’s hair.  He keeps watch now.

Who will make his food I wonder, and comb his hair, and clean his clothing.

Someone is singing.  I know this song, but it won’t stay with me.

 

Bits of my life fly up like tiny sparks and leave me. I am struggling a little to hold some of it.  I remember and I forget. One by one my sparks fly up and vanish. I search the top of the room for them.

My life is here now.  Under this blanket I made with my own hands on my loom while the first child was approaching. White, red, black, green. Stripes, waves, stars. 

I dream the first child among the sheep.  Her black head was barely taller than their backs. She became a good worker at the loom. She flies away. My daughter! Ah, my daughter!  She will weep. We were like the two hands of a woman together.

Years, winters, springs, summers turn in their courses.  They fly up, I have lost the numbers.  How many snow storms.  How many long summers.  How much work. How much eating and drinking. All my happiness in each day. Each night.

There are four sons.  I fed them well and they were strong.  Each taught by his father. And they are well.  Each one bowed low and came into this house through the small door today.  They fly up.  They are away.  I only see their faces from a long distance.  They are men.  They stand waiting wrapped in striped blankets. Silent and straight. This thing will only come to them once.

I know the stars well.  They do not fly up. They are brighter in my dream as I greet them.  The arch of heaven is higher and higher!

A long dark wind sighs through the walls of our canyon.  I know each stone.  I know each painted figure on its walls. I wait to go to them.

Come up! Fly up, the wind says to me quietly.

I see each house.  Smoke in pale lines reaches up.  It must be late in the year now. The sheep, the gardens, our paths, the river, each flies from me.

My hand falls loose from the world.