Hands
I held Braiding Sweetgrass in my hands, each weave effused an aroma stronger than a botanical garden. I stopped reading to cup a cluster of roses in my hands, some petals dropped when I unhanded them, as if they didn’t want me to let go. But I did. I went and held the face of a lamb in my hand, white, billowy, pompom head, a flock of them hiding poorly in a hydrangea bush. I cupped an old magnolia bud peaking out of its universe, it pumped like an ancient heart in my hands. I watched the gardeners sift forest-brown mulch with their gloveless hands spreading it like a blanket over the soil. I sat for a moment under a dream tree, as if I, too, were being tucked in, its white leaves talked in the wind, some flew away into butterflies. I breathed in the last of the roses before I left. The chipmunks followed me like I had nuts in my shoes. When I got home, I rubbed lavender cream into my hands to keep the wild on them, so that I wouldn’t forget, what we’ve all forgotten. Published in Sage Cigarettes Magazine |
Artist: "Jenni" Guinevere von Sneeden, @guinevere.von.sneeden
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