And now I am an old woman, alone and camping along the Pacific.
For me, there are no campfire songs or tall tales as with familial
groups I notice, happy together like a carpet of biscuits on the
bottom of a cast iron skillet. A slender gray snake slid into my
sleeping bag once and gifted to me several exclusive clues about
being alone and how to walk with it. In the chill of darkness, I let
stars fall around my shoulders like a shawl. I don’t get rattled when
twigs crack behind me on a moonless path. While camping under
Douglas Firs, I watch as boughs break. I close my eyes to be the
falling-down baby in the cradle and wake up to find he’s got the
whole world in his hands and I haven’t fallen out, just because I am
alone.
Bridget Clawson writes in Edmonds, Washington where she lives with her two dogs. She tows a teardrop camper to places near water in Washington and Oregon where she rockhounds for jaspers and agates to polish. Ms. Clawson has published two books on grief and loss and is currently working on a fictionalized account of her great-grandmother, who worked as a prostitute in the 1800’s. Her prose poems are found in various journals recently, including Mojave River Review, Ginosko Literary Journal, and Picaroon Press.
