Frith

The wind speaks to me:

Be calm, do not be afraid. It will be all right.
This is the time of your life you have been waiting for.
How can it be bad?
How can it hurt you?
Rejoice!
Throw a party! Revel in it!

I answer:

But those I love are dead.
I made so many mistakes.
Look. I am old. My hands do not work anymore.
I cannot lift the clay or center it.
My sense of balance sucks
and when I sit down to work,
no ideas come.
I am spent.
I waited too long.

And the wind answered:

That is it?
You are just going to give up?

The wind stirred up the leaves in a great whooshing
and lifted her hair in the wildness
she knew as a child
and as the tail of it passed
she closed her eyes
her nose and face and being
filled with scent and sound
that turned to memory
yellow aspen leaves clicking
snow pelting across her face
the scent of fall leaves moldering
kiln fires and baked bread
and wood fires from chimneys
back home …
when home was home
before it was not.

Child,
it murmured, taking her chin
as her mother had
You have always known what the 4 of cups meant
and the 5 of cups too.
Too early, it is true. But I cannot control that, nor can you.
It is time for you to take that 4th cup and the path behind you.
You must turn around and go.

You are not alone. I am always with you.

And the child woman,
the woman become old,
who would not and could not believe in a god and a holy ghost
who did not think she had the ability to be or believe
in anything else anymore,
took the hand of her oldest friend
and walked the rest of the way into life
where she lived happily ever more.