riding the waves of hieroglyphs

 Something stirred beneath Mrs. Scattergood and the movement woke her some more.  Entire patches of sand were moving. At first she thought it was the sweet ghost crabs.  About the only crabs she’d ever call sweet. That would have been something considering her weight.  But the movement was too particular and too many. Small clams.  Coquinas.  Their translucent legs peddling to burrow them down.  On either side of her there were a line of gulls plucking at the sand having clams for breakfast.

     She pulled the dried seaweed off her shirt and sniffed it the way she checked the dill in the markets.  A piece of seaweed slid off her.  Baubo says the sacred is in the pieces.  Mrs. Scattergood was always collecting pieces but didn’t have a memory of it.  When her legs were ready to go she stood up and headed home.  

~

     Baubo was waiting on the cottage porch wondering what happened to Mrs. Scattergood this time.  Then she nearly fell over backwards when some black capped chickadees came barreling out of nowhere flying through the holes in the trim that captioned the porch.  Baubo had been fiddling with her ears and yelled out, “I lost a great piece of earwax because of them.” She watched the birds fly into the pine trees.  Barry had put that trim in. Thought it added the homey touch.    

     Baubo was prone to contemplation but rarely let anyone know.  She did wonder why a person begins to cry when she gets sympathy.  Of course she noticed that gentleness allows tears to flow. That’s why she showed up when Barry died and offered Mrs. Scattergood her first Southern Comfort, straight up.  In addition to his sudden death, she knew that this was already a difficult time.

~

      Mrs. Scattergood was saving a piece of cedar at the back of her house.  It has insect hieroglyphs on it that also look like cranial stitching.  She knew the bugs were at work a long time on that one.  She also likes wood with knots. Liked seeing the lines from a paint brush on anything rather than the rolled on paint.  People are too busy wanting to see completion. They get hypnotized by the newly paved highway.  Assumption sleepiness.  Lack of consciousness. Loss of detail.  Beauty takes time and she was okay with that.  But it is true that some details are too much.  Some losses totally divert your flow.  Barry was gone.  Some days you wake up and don’t know who you are.  

Except from riding the waves:  a tale about being home in the world by freda karpf