Prayersticks

GiaB writing prompt #14 being in nature

I walk into the woods to cast prayers for you, you beyond the realm of form. Embracing indigenous ritual, I divine living dirt unearth a hollowed space. It leads me to you dying in your sleep. Tears, like fast erosion, swallow my intentions. I hear the earthworms making waste beneath a rock’s resting side. Curious witnesses watch. Emptied, I kneel in dead leaves digging with my hands to clear the perfect place to place your prayersticks. You are fixed now beneath the chant of river melodies. Suck the finished wind in, hold humid air beside my unstrung heart then forget to breathe again. Memories fill this hole, our story spills around me. Our union is put to sleep and I can’t stop dreaming your songs. At night, your voice wakes me and I hear no lyrics I can’t recall. I feel you singing like a mighty river, pouring your music on me like touch. At dusk, I plant these yellowed vines, dressed in ribbons of fear and yarns of remembrance beneath the cold black loam, this winter’s only wealth. There, in this ground, our seasons will compost. I want you to see me, calmed, my heart wrapped around these roots as I graft our family’s tender tree to the wild vines. Gleanings from our life fertilize the hungry shoots that carry my future skyward. Slicing silverwhite clouds, sleek blackbirds, authentic watchers, caw into the wind. In their throats, your final amen.

This memory popped up when prompted to write about Being in Nature…A damp day in the woods, rich and healing. Most ordinary days, not so much. Thank you for this prompt…Please consider writing about Being in Nature for this prompt. I tag Kim McKinney, J.D. Harms, Samantha Lazar, and anyone else to give this prompt a try…