Rosebuds

Eureka, CA 1992

The ravens are laughing at me as I lean into the tall yellow grass at the side of the road. Hollering from the telephone poles, they exchange raunchy jokes and bow to each other in the hot afternoon. I am picking wild rosebuds. Delicate old vines, in glorious full bloom, lay tangled in the grass before me, asking me to come deeper in, to ignore their little pricky stems. At my back, intermittent traffic zips by. I'm late at picking this year; the little pink buds are few and far between.

     As I pluck these wild and ragged ones, my thoughts go to those sumptuous beauties I tend at home. My hands bear deep gashes from recent bouts with pruning those lovelies. With thorns the size of bear claws, they hardly seem to welcome my hands-on presence. It is as if, through the long centuries of their taming and genetic manipulation, the defensive thorns have become even more formidable. Lovely to behold, so treacherous when touched. But here, where the swishing grass grows as it pleases, the wild ones allow me to reach into the heart of their tough and twisted domain to pluck the baby buds with my bare finger tips.

     A snake slides suddenly away from my approach and for a moment I am very still, rooted in heightened awareness. Old-soul-snake, not one to be trifled with, moves on, making the dry-grass whisper. I listen, nature turns her big wheel around me and in a breath I seem to rise on midnight wings to view the world from a nearby raven perch.

     I can see myself below now, a woman bending into the grass by the side of the road. A few yards away a house cat is belly-creeping under the alders. A fat bug of a car moves along the highway, slicing the countryside. Children play in the distance, their tiny voices laughing bells and on the other side of the hill an old man stands, his hand resting on his lawn mower. Across wide fields where cattle graze, a shallow bay reflects the sun. Seagulls swoop and sail there, crying out the moment's news. And at the furthest stretch of my eye, Big Mama, the sea, sways and breathes against the little land, as cold, bright and distant as a briny moon; as warm and familiar as blood.

     With my raven's eye, I can go no further than this. These are the boundaries of this place: to the west the distant sea; to the north, east and south the low redwood ridges that rim this narrow watershed. Somewhere in the shadows of the lanky trees,

deer spend the afternoon and foxes doze, waiting for night.

Across the road, plump hot apples call to me from laden branches. The sun burns against my dark feathered skull and I am up and away, opening my wings to ride the air.

     In flight I begin to dream of a winter's day, when the cool fog air will burden my wings with damp, when smoke will hang low against the wet grass. The apples will be gone then, the rosebuds all gathered in. I see the woman, warm within her house, while a soft rain rolls from the roof to plop in the gutters. She does not see me, hidden in the apple tree, hidden in the fog. She is sitting near the fire, her dried rosebuds spread on her lap, turning the long strings of them in her hands, holding them to her nose to inhale the faint rose of that summer day, ravens watching from the other world.  

all rights reserved by Kathlynne Moonfire 2011