I took my oldest on a pilgrimage
to pick up all the pieces of her,
a breadcrumb trail back and back to
her awareness’s origin.
We brought our littlest along with us;
a flesh and bone
talisman;
a stand in for all of the little versions of herself.
We meant to dig in
and we did;
excavating pools of grief and lakes of wonder’s very beginning.
I try so hard to be loose about what I’ve lost, easy with what my memory cannot hold on to;
the forks in the road continue to upend my resolve,
or any casual capacity to be more indifferent about all of the storylines that didn’t stay mine.
I think my kid has her own similar impulse to sort and reorder;
but she is so clearly on the front end,
her retrospect still informing potential pathways.
I straddle the midline of my life.
Some of it is dust and leaving it like that is right;
amazing how dust can conduit connection or pain in nearly balanced measure.
We are headed home now
and I am still at a loss over the scraps of me I continue to leave in these old places.
I don’t ever know when we’ll be back
and in this particular triplet configuration I have far less of an idea;
it was hard to come and it is hard to leave.
But home is people and the mountains and long winters and slow springs and
another perfect summer;
everything that offers up on the near horizon.
After that, when autumn presses in, she will head out;
all of these pieces in her pocket, tucked in tight and true.
This is right;
through trails of tears and all of the inevitable absences to follow.
This is where the roads have led; will continue to lead, through each chapter in the collection of stories;
forward into this immense dispersal of my heart across landscapes.