The Queen Sleeps

Of memories and a waning need for forgiveness

The waning Harvest Moon, in a clear sky last night, seemed to make the landscape weep. Maybe it is was with the letting go of summer—this damp, this dew, and rising mist over the road as we drove home from the city. When I think of weeping, I think of quilts, and tea, and soft touches. I think of time. As with seeping, weeping takes time to shift an aspect from one place to another.

Despite the warm days this week, autumn is here. The berries along the trail are overripe, and the mushrooms’ reds, oranges, and whites somehow make the woods more ominous, and more alive. On today’s hike, a man in our group found a viper and held it by the tail, for everyone to see. A Hoggorm can’t climb up from this position. They also say that they can’t lift their heads from the ground, but I’ve seen one do it. Once, years ago, we came upon a velvet-black viper (with melanism) in the south of Norway, that was thick enough to leverage herself up over a hiking boot. Egil, the snake, and I stood still for what seemed like a full minute before she lowered herself and slithered off. But this snake, long, thin and light, fell from the man’s hand, curling a little, like a party streamer. He tossed it gently onto a pillow of wet grass.

I think snakes are beautiful. But I wouldn’t pick one up. For so many reasons.

We passed a few beehives: two wooden pallets with wooden boxes filled with bees. One of the boxes had a for hire sign. But there were few active bees. Along the hike, we saw butterflies (unexpected), damselflies, and a very few gnats. It seemed odd since there was no wind, and much of the trail involved us hopping from stone to stone over mire. Not a single wasp to be seen. I look for them now. I listen.

It seems early for the queens to have snuggled into a place under a bit of tree bark to spend the winter. But this past Tuesday brought the Harvest Moon. Maybe this moon sings a winter lullaby.

Writing is still difficult. I’m still feeling weepy. Not sad exactly, but soft, and exposed. When I began this memoir, began looking closely at my mother whom I lived longer estranged from than entangled with, I was trying to find ways to forgive her. I couldn’t imagine that now I would be trying to find ways to forgive myself. Maybe moving away from the concept of forgiveness entirely? A wasp needs no forgiveness. We are who we are and we do our best. I believe that. At least I believe that regarding the women in my family. To say that we are broken women would be to beg the question that there is such a thing as a woman who is not broken in some way. Or a man who is not. Isn’t hurt a requisite for life?

My grandmother was born in upstate New York, and spent part of her childhood cleaning other people’s homes for room and board. She told me several times that her years at the Children’s Home in Vermont were the best in her life. It wasn’t an orphanage, she said. She was always particular about that. Her father was dead, yes. But her mother was alive, and had left her there.

My grandmother never told me about the trees in Vermont. About the smell of the earth there near the river. When I was in my 30s, my then-husband and I took our boys and my brother’s boys up to Vermont to see the Children’s Home. It was abandoned, but the caretaker of the property brought me a key so that I could look around. The green bits of broken glass, the soft wooden floors…

Later that day, while I was taking poetry and mental hospitals with Patricia Fargnoli and Tim Mayo at a little cafe, my then-husband took the kids swimming in the river, where my nephew was bitten by a snake. My brother’s oldest son told us, while we were driving out of town, “Oh, yeah, I thought I felt something.”

The thing is, apparently, though it may hurt, not every snakebite is venomous. There’s a lesson in that, too.

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Thank you for taking the time to read or listen. I’ll be back later this week with an audio poem. And again on Sunday with another Process Journal Entry.

Until then, have a great week!

Warmly,

Ren Powell’s Acts of a Recovering Drama Queen
Writing against Melodrama by Engaging with the Natural World
Give some love. It only takes a little ❤️.