FIRST THOUGHT: 3 10 2021

First thought:  Today the daylight is 2 minutes and 19 seconds longer than yesterday.

Second thought:  Rise up in half-light, naked and alone, windchimes, bare tree branches in the gusts like shadows of thin women dancing on the plaster beside me.

Third thought:  My bared feet curling with cold in the spring run-off of Brandywine Creek, the current unearthing around me pottery shards and arrow heads that I have come for, my long hands as quick as silvered fish, slick and searching.

Fourth thought:  The whitetail would circle the house just before dawn. I’d walk out barefoot, silent, to stand at the edge of their gathering, watching them watching me, as the light came on.

Fifth thought:  Hard spring rain running the roof of this house called to me at 4:00am, the hour of the wolf, my father singing Danny Boy through the distance, my grandmother braiding my hair.

Sixth thought:  I slept with your copper cuff beneath my pillow, forged by your own hands, the patch of wolf fur you gave to me held inside its circle, cradling my left ear, your voices in my hair.

Seventh thought:  He told me in ceremony years ago:  There is a black wolf within you. She has gone ahead of you, making the path through this darkness. I am a woman sleeping with wolf fur. I am listening with my body. There is a wolf rising within me again. Before dawn splits the night, I follow. Not even this darkness would dream of denying us now.

©2021 Dora E. McQuaid

ALL PEACE TO EACH ONE OF YOU. DORA