Thursday, June 24, 2010

I talked to her. Pretty blue eyes and her platinum hair slightly raised in the mountain breeze.
'Is that a mommy goat?' she asks. 
Yes, Miss it is. 
'Where's her baby?' and her concern shows. 
She's there. Calling. They call for each other just as your mom calls for you.

'Oh.'

We talk for a while of Billy Goats Gruff and Mommies and corn..
'I have to go now bye bye!' She dances away smiling. Her mom and dad also smile and begin to walk away down the street to a pretty little gray house on the corner that the platinum haired girl calls 'home.'

Bye Bye, little one.

I spend a while on my knees patching the hole in the fence with thin rusty wire and make my mental note to buy more wire next week.
The orange moon is almost completely full as I lock the pen gate behind me. The lunar eclipse comes in two nights.

'It'll be beautiful.' I think, as Regs and I begin to walk back to our small space in the corner of the farm. A baby bird emerges from the bushes at our feet and skims the ground.  
I smile as Regs gives chase knowing the futility of this.. But the baby bird does not rise and stays low. I call Regs to break off. He does and turns to look at me with his yellow eyes..

The fledgeling crashes into the soft sand a few yards away and I smile slightly at the instability of newly feathered wings.
'It's hard at first young one. So much to learn..' and I take the frightened chick into my hands, intending to find a safer place.
Mother and Father chatter in the trees with concern as I walk.

'Don't worry. I'm not that animal'
The baby sits blinking slowly and looks at me.

I stare in wonder as she lays down in my callused hand and dies.

'Please don't go.... I'll find a safe place for you..'

She won't listen, and the narrow eyes and shrill calls of the birds in the trees, this bright orange moon are witnesses this night.

'I have to go now bye bye..'

I stand stroking her gently with the mountains at my back, crying as I always have, as I always will.  

Very gently, I lay her under the tree that was her first image at the instant she opened her little eyes to the world.

No one will know. Just her Mother and Father who's duty is done and now take wing into the west. Regs sits at my feet staring intently with his yellow wolf eyes.

And the bright orange moon...

And me...

I am still here. 

3 comments:

  1. Every soul needs grief to evolve,
    but to survive it needs joy.

    - Birgit Ramlow

    ReplyDelete
  2. Simply a Road..
    and I discover the Greatness of its Simplicity.

    @

    ReplyDelete
  3. Your writing is beautiful. Loved reading this story your ability to paint with your words is inspiring.

    ReplyDelete