Out in the Way Back, there is a new order. Barbara has been allowed back. She ate from the bowls. Drank from the communal water. she layed next to her mother and her aunt during cud time. and i will watch now to see the changes. i think that Oona has moved to the top. her mother, the Grandmother of all, Snowbunny, has kept to herself today. i need to watch the next days to really know. but it's over and done. for this time. and in their very singular terms, All is Well.
but...that's the Way Back. Out Front, a different story plays out.
Nogal has assumed his Place in the buck pen. this is not a good photograph but it seemed cruel to take pictures of such Grief. in the first moments, there was a Great Display. Even old Gideon rose to the occasion and huffed and snorted, the other two, surprisingly, TenZen, who is so passive, but him too. Much stamping and vocalizing and tongue flapping and just virile rowdiness, much peeing on beards and nudging dear young Nogal. then intense Watching as he went about the perimeters, looking and checking if there was a way Back to his mother. and then scouting hiding places, "in case". that lasted maybe an hour. since then, he has cried. non stop. For his mother. and the Bucks just watched and listened to his misery. His mother watched. His sister Celia called back to him all day. but his mother, Lucky Star watched. it is almost Rim Time and his cries are becoming a little softer, a little more space inbetween. But who does he have to sleep next to? i won't know. maybe no one. maybe he will sleep alone. Deep Breath in, Deep Exhale.
this was a very Canary Yellow cloth of Deb Lacativa's that i put in the copper pot with the pods of the Snake Tree. just wadded up. the Dark is from oxidation of the folds that as the liquid evaporates in Sun, begin marking any cloth.
and all day, i looked at the Vertical image. but late, nearing Sun Set, i wondered....What If? and i think this is IT. what it IS, i have no idea. but i think it's the next Cloth. it speaks of a repeating Rhythm. maybe of the Cranes return, of migration, of following some really unhearable things that tell us Things? that there is no language for. but only some kind of response. the best we can offer in any given moment.
?