The Blood Worm Moon of March has shed something from me. It awakens, then falls back to sleep, then reemerges once more, just like the spring awakening that yearns to come. Yet, she’s temperamental – a lion snuffing the winter from her nostrils.
Like us.
Let’s cut to the point– I know because I’ve done it to you… We do it to each other in our own ways, don’t we?
We accuse.
Who learned it first – the way we are with one another when we’re at our worst, if I taught you or stole it to use against you – I don’t know. Does it matter?
I won’t use it against you anymore (at least, I tell myself that), but I fear you’ll use it against me. Even my phrasing gives that away. It says I don’t even fight it anymore – the role I’ve assumed on this runaway train.
The damsel
Always in distress.
The feminist in me – shallow as it may be – winces, seeing what I’ve become. The woman I wanted to be … I can’t even finish the words, feeling the disappointment in myself swallowing me up to the neck. But it’ll suffocate me if I let it, and there’s nothing I can do now. So, I move on.
Yet, I still look back … I can’t help it. Something tells me I must if I’m to keep myself from the same dark hole, wherein I’d begun to pull the dirt up over myself. If I’m to keep seeing the world for all its hues and shades of color – the ones I couldn’t see in the dark, I must look back.
If I’m there too long, though…
I leave it unfinished. I’m learning the consequences – how it chips away to allow yourself to linger there too long.
How did we get here?
I ask myself about who did what and why, like I’m taking notes for a big test. You see, I’m impatient for more information, too. Simultaneously, though, I’ll smack your hand from the cookie jar when you ask questions of your own.
At least I’m self-aware, I contend. You always grin, I ponder now.
What is his face telling me that his mouth won’t speak?
Distraction.
Our son leads me into the kitchen. He’s hungry after school. Hungrier now because I’ve led him on a walk around the house.
He’s been into the backyard, where there were discoveries to be made. The wind had swirled and scattered the debris of the crows and hollow dogs amongst the pine needles and broken limbs.
Everyone’s feeling the restlessness of the winds after the Worm Moon, including me. It swept away the Arctic chill that had been in the air and sent down a few sunbeams of springtime to remind us… like a promise in the skies.
Better days to come, it breathes.
A rebel yell …
… is ringing in my ears, bringing me back to the here and now.
Our son’s anxiousness triggers my own more than it should in an old pro. I lost my foothold somewhere along the way, so it feels as if I’m learning to walk again. My limbs are shaky and unsure.
He’s been holding back.
His eyes plead with me because he’s not sure he can control himself anymore. He’s afraid of himself. Of what he might do. It reaches into my heart and whispers “no one will hear him if I’m gone.” Each word comes out like a heartbeat rhythm, slowing until… It reddens my nose and blurs my eyes till I have to stop.
Music will help us both, so I let him choose – knowing his calm will bring my own.
The boy sends me to “Lucid Dreaming,” and he searches my eyes for understanding, knowing for certain I won’t hear him in this. He’s right. I can’t… He’s given up on me. But then, he points to the song “Africa” and jumps back. Its drumbeats are tap-tap-tapping us back into rhythm.
Back to “Lucid Dreaming”
His eyes are like my grandmother’s in my dreams. They’re slow and still; though, they shift, telling me to watch. To see…
I heard her voice shout my name on the wind, but I know it’s just a neighbor from across the way. Still, I’ll roll it around in my head while I’m making his dinner, heating the tea for his father, and blowing my nose again.
Trying so hard, but never quite getting there…
My grandmother grins into my wet eyes and nods. I hear her, telling how she’s clearing me right-out.
Straightening me right-up … my grandfather’s voice comes to me like an Air Corps tap-tap.
Great-aunt Theodosia stubs a nose toward an old Chinese proverb, and it’s smack-dab, right out-front. So, I correct my posture and begin the first pages. Looking back… Then, I pop over to his Mamaw Ada’s for her wisdom in the Word.
March’s blustery nature sends her pages flapping, and I think to myself – words on winds. A small, steady chirp grows louder, then fades, from the burning bush close-by, and I smile.