I often see a tree where one is gone,
and the wind that moves
through its once branches
are the fingers of my ancestors
against my cheek.
How do we travel so easily
down the well of time
until a house is no longer a house,
but a place where scars are healed,
a ceremonial labyrinth,
where you can burn a blueberry pancake
and still savor it in your mouth.
All who lived here before
are still present –
the woman who birthed a baby
in your bedroom,
the sigh of the long marriage,
the argument that still lives in the kitchen.
All of it there before you were born,
Yet somehow time grabs your wrist
when you are pinching black salt
onto your eggs.
Don’t do it, time whispers,
don’t go.
Then you hold a frog in your hand
and celebrate what you can see –
its glandular skin,
it’s cleft tongue and folded limbs.
Not a man, not a prince,
just a frog looking back at you –
camouflaged as he is,
camouflaged as you are,
moving back and forth
through time.
An invitation to write: Your Epilogue
- Write something that you want the reader to know about who you are now.
For a deeper memoir exploration through the Hero’s Journey, take Laura’s 12-week workshop in a workbook with STORYquest, the Writer, the Hero, the Journey.