It’s 7:17 a.m., and there’s a praying mantis on my door.
At first, I spy this with narrowing eyelids and resolve to clean the porch. Save the door, I think.
Let the mantis be.
However, the spiders have taken over… I think it with a twist in the side of my mouth.
I imagine they feel quite put out as I sweep them down, but “this is the arrangement,” I say aloud.
Tidying up isn’t optional, my dears, and y’all never want to tear down the old. That’s what’s needed to make room for the new.
I should tear down the weeds in the old garden beds.
There’s fluff being blown into the air like wishes, though, and I can’t seem to bring myself to do it.
Walking across the porch, I see a black feather pulled out from the ones I’ve tucked into the glass on the rickety stepladder.
I don’t know why I keep them. I couldn’t even remember where I’d collected each one. I ponder this on a cool morning on the porch with my son sitting in front of me.
Wishes float onto my porch and all around me.
Regardless of my sweeping, it’s insulation that’ll get between the slats and rot them with humidity and rainwater.
Still… I can’t tear down the weeds.
When I walk through the yard later, I’ll feel the wishes blown into my skin in a rush of wind.
I stop.
It flows down the mountainside and into me with the magic of a world no one can truly know or possess. And I feel it.
I turn into it. My lips part and my chin lifts. I hold out my hands to let one rest in the palm of my hand. Then, I watch it float away. The sweat on my back comes alive with chills, perked to attention by that calling of a higher power.
I see one float away from these places, lifting higher and higher before it takes an odd turn and circles back.
Stop.
I think the word without knowing why at first.
It glides nearly right back to the weeds and lands in the grass.
To be mowed up now, never to grow.
But I imagine another life… One where it finds its way into the heap of grass clippings. It discovers a place to lie dormant until the spring.
I nod.
Yes, I determine, it’ll find its way.