Friday, July 14, 2023

Crane Wife

When I return to the little cabin in the afternoon, the sandhill cranes are bobbing up and down in the meadow, concealing their young, their motives. The soles of my feet are black from walking around the cabin, but my steps are light, the steps of a woman no longer carrying the weight of the world, or just her own expectations of it. I wade through waist-high grass to reach the horses, as they come calling when I open the back door. 

The women in town told me all the places I had to visit downtown, the little shops for trinkets, the best deli in the valley. I smiled and nodded, fully aware that I'd not visit one of them. As soon as I could, I left town. I want the cacophony of avenue B, otherwise, give me the blissful silence of a land untamed, give me waist-high grass and sandhill cranes, give me timeless time and back porches made for reading, give me bourbon the kind that comes in a water glass without ice only because you had none. Give me dirty feet and pristine sleeps, there's a gate to the horse paddock that lets you walk right to the waters edge, there's ten acres of grass at the bottom of these log steps, I have lost track of time and that is
exactly
what I was meant to.

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