Braid Song in Rubato
Winter in North Texas
and a rare snow falling.
A cold, cold morning. Still.
We bundle ourselves
into layers of warmth,
leave our little houses,
our little lives, and step into
the thick silence of time
snow-slowed, suspended.
I am five again, giddy, fifteen,
I am twenty—a young woman
runs on the path
just ahead of me, clouds of breath
trail behind her, her cap yellow-bright,
her long yellow braid singing,
swinging, back and forth, back
and forth. Bounce, fly, swing,
bounce, an imprecise metronome.
I can’t quite catch its tempo.
But my bones know this music,
its strange rhythms and rests,
its skipped beats, its wild joy.
I would follow it anywhere,
this living.
and a rare snow falling.
A cold, cold morning. Still.
We bundle ourselves
into layers of warmth,
leave our little houses,
our little lives, and step into
the thick silence of time
snow-slowed, suspended.
I am five again, giddy, fifteen,
I am twenty—a young woman
runs on the path
just ahead of me, clouds of breath
trail behind her, her cap yellow-bright,
her long yellow braid singing,
swinging, back and forth, back
and forth. Bounce, fly, swing,
bounce, an imprecise metronome.
I can’t quite catch its tempo.
But my bones know this music,
its strange rhythms and rests,
its skipped beats, its wild joy.
I would follow it anywhere,
this living.
Robin Turner has recent work in Eratio, Clementine Unbound, Literary Mama, One, and Heron Tree. Her chapbook, bindweed & crow poison, is available from Porkbelly Press. She lives in the Piney Woods of East Texas and works with homeschooled teens online.
Art: Public Domain