The Spread

Winter mornings she was up before dawn

walking the silence before the neighbourhood awakened. She came home with leaf litter on her coat, seeds in the pockets, smelling of damp and nature.

Sometimes she wrote about who she met

a raven blinded in one eye, a

wind that whispered of secrets, a

songbird in death who sang louder than

any other bird. But mostly she sat

distracted by poetry, a curl of cigarette smoke and how the spread of tarot cards had

played out on the kitchen table. Today,

when everyone else was invisible, she was not! She wrapped herself up for warmth,

raked her chooks feet hands through her still thick, auburn hair and sighed. The cards

had revealed themselves and she must now own her past – live her present

and prepare for what might lay ahead.