Calling Out

Up early in the morning light to take Claire to the bus. There's more laughing now that we're not sitting in the pitch black in anticipation of the flashing lights coming down the road. 


The light eases things.


Home to find Chewy, big-eared dog, waiting for me, tail wagging. Leash on and out the back door to the road, Truman, that bumps up to the edge of our backyard. 


The neighborhood black cat, two glossy crows, and a four-point buck are all standing in the middle of the road ahead of us. Chewy and I stop, his bat-like ears on high alert. Crows lifts off to higher ground. Buck strolls away. Black cat moves to the grass to sit and watch us. A yellow leaf tumbles. Chewy strains on his leash.


Something about this one cat makes him cuckoo.


I could turn back to avoid black cat 
and Chewy's pulling, 
but the air is so delicious, 
so soft, 


a cool hand on my cheek.


I breathe. 


Stay here.
Right here. 


I am usually not here. Most often I'm digging through the past, or keeping my eye on the future, in the false belief that there I will find salvation there. 


I think...


There everything will be well.  And I will be fine(r).


But what about right here, with myself, just as I am. 


Middle-aged woman, on a quest for...


What? Who? Where? Which way?

 A magic box? 
 A secret scroll?
 The perfect fit?
 The fountain of youth?
 A perfect path?
*The answer to life's persistent questions? 


Nothing needs to change for me to be okay right now.


A caucus of crows 
sit on bare branches 
above my head


Calling out.

*courtesy of Garrison Keillor.