Page 149 - Dark Matter:Women Witnessing Issue #3 - December 2015

Dark Matter: Women Witnessing - December, 2015 Issue #3 - EXTINCTION / DEVOTION

The air around me inhales each sound, each exhalation of my breath. The forest breathes back into

me as I breathe in between each word.

The air, the trees, echo back to me my life. It is like hearing my own name called lovingly. It is like

hearing a eulogy for all that I have to lose.

Harvest

Saturday morning, I stand by the vegetable garden and a familiar honking directs my gaze up. It is the

fourth flock of migrating Canada geese I have seen in the last two days. What tugs at me as I see

them in a wavy wishbone heading south? The cycle of the year turning inward once again. I watch

them leave and am thankful I have the good fortune to stay. My love is here, my gardens are here, my

animals, my cabin, the whole of my life. In the oven, a pie made of wild apples bubbles over,

cinnamon tea steeps on the wood stove. I measure the wealth of my days by scent and harvest, by

the warmth of a fire and a hand that slips easily into mine.

With the turning of the leaves, the cold settles in.

The crickets are barely audible at night and the

sun pulls away from our meadow by five in the

afternoon. Light grows dense and golden, yellow

pin cherry leaves dapple meadow grass. Still,

twenty-five blue morning glories opened today and

pale pink hollyhocks bloom without a hint of fading.

One year has passed since we were handed the

deed to our land. Under this autumn sky, I begin to understand my youthful desire to leave family and

home as a yearning to be a denizen of the planet, not a person of a specific neighborhood or even of a

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