under Stone Moon

Clouds are forming like November spider silk.

Webbed into grey waves, like Pacific surf crossed with arctic tundra. You’re soaring, seeing ribbed stratocumulus from above. You’re looking down upon them. I’m a small little one, wedged cozily between your feathers. Small enough that you barely notice me. We feel both small and large-

large in the sense of being one with this great earth-quilt,

glad to be stitched into its threads. Small because that's what we are. Tiny slices of starry carbon. We’re looking for something, a lake, I think, that’s been lost to you for quite some time. I did not hesitate when you asked for my accompaniment long ago, but now I feel dappled and weary and bone-chilled, though still awestruck by the beauty of this crystal ivory world. Some moons ago you and I met in the sea and knew there was a shared journey in our future. Unjaded, unclouded by fears of the unknown, we sat next to each other that first day in a dark undersea cave and drummed on the floor, sang some old tunes, gazed intently at each other’s eyes. Friendship seemed forthcoming, it was not difficult to be enchanted by a barn owl. Your avian face holds many mysteries I have yet to understand. Your plans are only slightly more known to me, but I trust you without question.

The heart will trust, but when physically challenged, the body may protest. The wind rips through my wraps, my weightless skin. I was not built for deep cold conditions as you were.

We fly together for some days, first sailing the breezes among Greenland and Iceland and other unnamed small cold lands that seem magical simply because they are uninhabited by humans. The Wild thrums there, strong and alive and relentless.

Tears roll down my ice-crusted cheeks as I watch sunset and we fly over frozen bodies of water and I wonder where the reindeer are. Are they sleeping in some snowy alcove, huddled together? Do they sleep standing up or lying down on the snow? I feel a longing for sleep, for a garden of magnolia trees, for an northeastern forest. I want to hug something, so I gently caress your wing feathers.

I’ve never been to the Arctic Circle until now. But who knows how many years you’ve been flying here, dark-eyed one; you navigate these frigid air-chambers like you were born with wind in your wings.

Six evenings later, you deposit me in a tree-hollow and go out hunting while I collapse in sleep. Sometime in the night you return and we share the hollow, made all the warmer from your presence. Your occasional sounds pierce the ebony veil of silence.

I don’t remember much of my childhood before the fall. There was a mother, a father, a kindness and warmth that pervades these fuzzy mind-flickers. There was a school and other young ones. One day I recall sitting on the ground outside, in a circle with my peers and a smiling teacher. I recall being happy, absorbed in my lessons, writing on a handheld chalkboard. And then began a ground-shaking I’d not felt before. Gentle at first, then intensifying. A friend of mine sitting across from me in our circle, locked green eyes with me. A teacher called for us all to get up and come over to a different spot, but before anything could happen I was engulfed by the ground. Torn open, the Earth’s maw swallowed me whole.

Blackness remained for a long time. Weightless, I was shrinking. Forces beyond my comprehension churned right against my skin. Perhaps minutes or months or years passed, I don’t know. When I awoke, a lot had melted away. Earth had healed from many wounds, though many await healing still. That’s what you and I are here for, to in some small way heal the wound of this hidden lake. We have to find it first though.

Tall conifer trees gave way, over some days, to the tallgrass prairie of what once was Montana. Bison roam and nibble greenery, scuffing the ground with their hooves.

You glide low, over bison’s heads, almost skimming the small yellow early spring flowers. Sunset comes slowly, assembling cloud-bones in purple waves. There those clouds are again. Gliding to rest at the edge of a large body of water, there is a palpable sense of relief. The air seems to glimmer in the wind and I can feel this is the place. You fold your wings and your eyes of black pools speak volumes. We have arrived.