I say goodbye, put down the phone, and stand motionless for a minute. Five minutes, maybe? Suddenly, the walls inside my small cabin seem unbearably confining, and I run outside. I don't know where I'm going, but my legs do.
without a glance
at the wildflowers in bloom
I run to the glen
Out of breath, I slow down. Should I be running? I don't know! I don't know anything! That realization terrifies me, makes me run fast again until I arrive at my secret glen.
The grass runs wild here. I sit down in my usual spot, resting my back against a log fallen long ago during some winter wind storm years before I arrived.
fallen log
moss-covered, rotten in places
I bless your support
Impossible, winter. No such thing as winter. I run my hands along the top of the grass blades surrounding me. If winter exists, then how did all the fresh green grass get here? Does anyone believe all this growth can sleep, nourished somehow under a hard cold ground?
not believing
I touch my flat hard belly -
pregnant, you say?
I cry and laugh and eventually, fall asleep. A year later, my baby sleeps here, too,on the grasses at the glen.
In later years, she'll play here and we'll read together here and she'll run away from me to come here and she'll take her husband here. We both agree, the grass in the Glen is the best, the softest, the most beautiful green in all the world.
without a glance
at the wildflowers in bloom
I run to the glen
Out of breath, I slow down. Should I be running? I don't know! I don't know anything! That realization terrifies me, makes me run fast again until I arrive at my secret glen.
The grass runs wild here. I sit down in my usual spot, resting my back against a log fallen long ago during some winter wind storm years before I arrived.
fallen log
moss-covered, rotten in places
I bless your support
Impossible, winter. No such thing as winter. I run my hands along the top of the grass blades surrounding me. If winter exists, then how did all the fresh green grass get here? Does anyone believe all this growth can sleep, nourished somehow under a hard cold ground?
not believing
I touch my flat hard belly -
pregnant, you say?
I cry and laugh and eventually, fall asleep. A year later, my baby sleeps here, too,on the grasses at the glen.
In later years, she'll play here and we'll read together here and she'll run away from me to come here and she'll take her husband here. We both agree, the grass in the Glen is the best, the softest, the most beautiful green in all the world.
