Sometimes change happens so fast I feel as though I am on an earth suddenly devoid of gravity, a globe that wobbles at her poles where I hang in the rip between worlds like an unhinged door, not quite recognizing or inhabiting myself.
Between the old and the new, past and future, one me and another, joy and despair; the caterpillar not quite yet the butterfly; the newly skinless snake; Pluto entering the Ninth House.
A stone becomes a great white egret. Together we lift off from the clear creek and fly between the canopy of green that line its edges into the great bowl of blue~ free at last. I both watch her and am her; wings beating in tandem; grace in motion. In the primordial ocean I am a drop of water, a wave, the deep abyss, the foam like lace etched in the virgin sand. Suddenly a sea cliff appears and on its edge a massive golden eagle. Full circle, yang to the egret's yin. Later, to the beat of the hoop drum, dolphins surface, welcome back the prodigal daughter, salt water and bliss massaging the lines on her face, the sagging skin, the wrinkled, calloused toes; sets the elegant silvery hair afloat.
The writer grieves. The lover, the mother, the grandmother grieves. The beloved of nature grieves. The child grieves. The mystic~dare I say it~grieves. The dry creek bed grieves, the tree, the earth, the very soul of the world all grieve.
It turns out it doesn't have to be something. It doesn't need a beginning and an end, not a middle, or a thesis statement. Here, right here, is a start. Get in and then get out, my watercolor teacher counsels. No fiddling, she says in her Australian accent, just simple brush strokes pushing water and pigment and then put the brush down and walk away. A single crack, words gush like water, now close the computer, turn out the light, and hope for sleep.
