She moves the crystal along my hip. “Arthritis?” she asks. (So that’s why I walk through the woods more slowly these days.) She passes the crystal along the bottom of my feet. “You are well-grounded,” she says, then holds the crystal above my shut eyes. “Seven wolves travel with you. A red one is out in front.”
I think of my Advanced Placement Literature students, seven, and the red-headed boy, Ruddy, who sits front and center. In June, they’ll all travel ahead of me, while I bed down alone in my classroom, waiting for the next pack of timber to kindle.
Us light workers know things…
🙂
Dear R Schaut,
Amazing!! More of a lyric poem than prose.
To this day, I am grateful for the wonderful grade school teacher who many years ago introduced my 5th grade class to the miracle of poetry and poets. (Robert Frost’s “The Pasture” was the first of many).
Thank you, Cathryn!
Quite beautiful and evocative