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dedicated
to Alexandra Genetti
The old
woman walks into the forest. The snow fills the
path, and piles itself between the crackly old
trunks of Ponderosa Pine. Bearing down on her
weathered walking stick, she climbs the rocky
shoulders of the hills, immodestly exposed now that
the grasses are three moons whithered
away.
"Conserve
your strength," she mutters out of habit, then
laughs at herself--a laugh bigger than her tiny
body, echoing among the trees and canyons. For this
time, this once and only time, the trek up the
mountain path is a one-way hike. She need only
arrive, she need not return. She kicks a small
stone from the path, and listens to it clatter down
the hillside. "Run along home, now!"
She walks
across the stream on the old fallen tree, and knows
the water flows beneath the blanket of snow. Along
the empty path she walks as darkness gathers. More
by long intimacy than by sight, she finds the
place, where the corners of the world come
together. She skids inelegantly down to the little
promontory, almost wide enough for two, an
excursion of rock into the airy night, lifted high
above the flowing waters, which she hears but
cannot see. She settles down onto the old bones of
the Earth, the stars arcing in their timeless
delight far above her old head.
Without
effort, she draws a circle around her, just nodding
her head and letting her thoughts find their own
beginning and close back upon themselves. The
spirits come too, adoring her like ecstatic pets:
bright winged things, lizard spirits slithering in
heat, the people of the deep, welling up inside
her, and then the slow ones, with hard shells and
dark eyes, clutching her spine to the ground and
balancing her with their strong grip.
She presses
her palms into the ancient rock and smiles. She
speaks to the Earth, "Old Woman, how do you endure
so long?" And the Earth answers: "Old Woman, how do
you endure so long?" The crone closes her eyes and
waits, patient as the rock on which she
sits.
She
remembers a few things: the husband she buried, the
daughter she buried before that, the first cry of a
child, and then, with strange vividness, the day
her older sister showed her how to weave a ring out
of the long blades of summer grass in some far-away
meadow long ago. Such a delight that was, to take
one of the ten million blades that cover the Earth
and make it your own, wedded to your finger like
some ancient talisman of life. Of course, all those
dozens of summers had made other memories too,
innumerable permutations on a theme. But she knows
that the few pieces coming to mind now are the
important things.
In the midst
of her reverie, the dark maiden goddess notices
her, plants a kiss on her brow, and asks, "Shall I
show you the way?" The crone looks up and meets the
eyes of the goddess. The goddess suddenly bows her
head and says, "Forgive me, Lady, I didn't know
you." The old woman pulls the goddess by the hand
and strokes her hair. "Be still, dear. Attend me
now."
The goddess
looks up, but her eyes do not meet the crone's.
She's looking past her, back up the slope toward
the trail. "He's behind you now, Lady." The crone
wearily twists herself around to see him waiting,
his back to her: the skeleton with the scythe, he
whom men fear, in all countries of the world. The
maiden offers her hand and helps the old woman to
her feet. "I seem to have gone by him unnoticed,"
says the old woman.
"Still you
must meet him," says the goddess.
"Very well."
Up the slope she walks, closing the seven strides
that separate her from Death. He's unaware of her,
until she lifts her slender arm and wraps her old
fingers around his skull. Drawing close, she kisses
his cold cheekbone. He knows her now, and with
silent, loving grace, the scythe comes round and
severs her. Into the Earth she falls, like wine
poured upon bread.
Then she
flows. Down into the Earth she flows, becoming
soil, sand, and stone. Down further she flows, into
the stream far below, becoming moving water under a
snowy shroud. Then up she flows, widdershins around
the cosmos, catching the fire of the rising Sun
just like the old sliver Moon that announces his
return. And high into the air she flows, spirit
growing wider as it circles, until she is all,
caressing all from within and from without. And,
without body or voice, she laughs again. For even
wrapped around the world, she knows where her
spirit is settling, down into the bones and blade
of Death. Her own flow around the circle is
completed in the motion of his scythe, and she is
there.
And as they
come--old ones, lonely ones, lovers, children,
babes--she accepts their gentle kisses and takes
them up in the arc of her swinging arm. There is no
gap in the circle, no hesitation, no stammering
reluctance. We are all home here.
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