The following is from an exercise the writing group in Gardiner did: write as much as you can in ten minutes, stream of conciousness, about the word spring.
I am wearing white stockings in my dreams, with little pink hearts embroidered measured half inches from each other. They leave marks on my legs, like pillows do. I have hearts ironed onto my little girl legs in my dreams.
In my boots walking to Beaver Ponds I remember this dream, and where it came from, the delicacy of stained glass in church, the cathedral light, the upward swings of ceilings, the discomfort of pantyhose riding to my crotch. I compare it now to the dust, rock, silted snow, the old buffalo, laying his head to the pinched, hopeful grass, watching me beneath his helmet of horn and fur. When I walk the boot zipper makes a small imprint on my leg, progressing into a blister. I let it pop and ooze, wait for the callous, and it has come today, after a week of walking and waiting.
Further down the road there is a snow drift and I fall thigh-high, and do as Fireman Friendly advised to do in case of fire, stop, drop, roll, and doggie paddle my way to the spring grass. The snow is melting and mixing with dirt, a wonderland of desert. It cakes to the seam of my leg. I laugh. My hands are numb and when I pat a poodle named Oliver outside the Visitor Center, after I give up snow-swimming, I can’t feel his curls. I put on my mittens.
