Glad today to have my stomach filled with morning’s labor in the soil. Stripped with sighing satisfaction as I peeled away my rain-soaked clothes. Showered, scrubbed the dirt out from my fingernails and pores, then donned clean cottons and opened up my shop.
Still closed supposedly on Mondays, Tuesday; a phone call from New Haven and sure, I’ll open just for pickup. But did some other things in there that needed doing, and without technology I managed just as well.
While waiting for New Haven another customer drives by, sees the open doors and moseys in. How’ve you been, Mary, is innocent enough but turns a key that it would seem unlocks her heart. Her husband died last month–Oh Mary, I’m so sorry! I didn’t know… "He shot himself," she says. I have made her cry and hold her till she stops, then dry my own tears quickly so she doesn’t see.
I’m back in place and yet not there when Margaret finally comes at four. We talk a while, an hour or more and then we pack her car with family photos and the like. I bid goodbye. "Wait a minute," she says, and for a moment I cease to breathe, and then exhale with happy luxury as she hands me a gold beribboned green foil-wrapped small package.
I hug her and I wave goodbye, and go inside to read the present that she’s left me. Sand Creek, a collection of poems by Simon J. Ortiz.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology