It's Still Life

The Stick

All winter that limb hung there as if baffled by gravity’s indecision, and sometime between dark and daylight it fell from the sky and plunged to the earth. The white beechwood bark peeling, and curling back onto itself, lichen-poxed, and laying in the mud-soaked grass like a diseased long bone. It’s what my mother would’ve called a widow’s stick, when the whole leaves a bit of itself behind. Good for poking at a dying fire. For hurrying the dog along. For walking up a steep hill. For balance and for a stiff backbone and for dignity and for a damned sturdy walking stick. I prefer keeping in mind even the possibility that existence has its own reason for being.  And right now I have this itch to take this stick for a walk.

for dVerse Prosery to include the phrase “I prefer keeping in mind even the possibility that existence has its own reason for being.” — Wisława Szymborska, Possibilities and shared with @Experimentsinfc #APoemADay on Twitter   © Misky 2021 Image is from WikiArt. Words: 133.