Too Busy to Write?

Carol A. Hand

Too Busy to Write

yet an image keeps coming to mind

unbidden

of a younger me

standing in the clearing

by my northwoods’ cabin

in Ojibwe ceded territory

on a warm sunny morning

many years ago

Like many mornings

I am humbly gathering strength

to face challenges with grace

With my fingers laced around the

latch of White Pony’s door

I pray

“Help me walk a path of love and light

and peace and joy

in thought and word and deed”

*

*

My prayer not quite finished

I hear a pounding rhythmic sound

drawing ever closer

my heart automatically beating faster

with surprise and a tinge of fear

“Bears can’t run that fast,”

I think to myself

as the sound grows louder

Suddenly it’s overhead

just behind me

then two bald eagles pass above

inches from my bowed head

flying south over the sunlit creek

I don’t remember what fearful

task I faced that day

walking into conflicts

between worldviews and cultures

but I knew the path

was where I was meant to be

on that day

and I would not be walking it

alone