by Michele Darnell-Roberts
They disappeared,
leaving me perplexed. There was no warning,
no ritual to say farewell. Months later, my body creaks
like an empty barn. I no longer move in time
with the changing seasons, for I am autumn and winter
with no hope of spring. I enter the era of the crone,
wearing clothes as dark as night, and I think of bones, teeth and skin
rattling in a medicine bag, waiting to be emptied out
and read as prophecy; walk the winding path
in the moonlight leading to white chapped mountains
in the distance. ©Michele Darnell-Roberts | 
