Crazy Singers

As it rained for over a day I did not leave the tent. Like a dog I curled around thoughts that once were and waited on sleep to come and go for thirty hours. The great wind ran around the rim of the lake with it's fingers tearing at its hair, and throwing cat sized branches at my tent. All night the wind was a loud drumming, and storm singers made up words that would not stay out of my dreams. The rain would leave, change it's mind, and then rush back at my lodge of cloth with such anger I cringed. All day the sun did not show itself either. From a paper bag I ate parched corn that I don't remember buying. From another bag I tore peppered beef that logic said should not be eatin. I swollow rain water from a cup I set outside my door and listen hard.
I wait. The rain paces itself.

Three years have passed since I began this walk. New England was a test. When I began walking I had a built in out. Once new England was done I could stop, regroup, move on. Time moved on. I waited for the walk to leave me but she is a faithful lover, and she'd waited too long for me to court her to give up on her affections.
First there was snow. There was so much snow that there was nothing else. I was thankful to be home. Five days under a wooden roof and feet of snow fell. It did not melt. It did not drift. All winter new blankets were thrown on the yard, and through the forests where the animals forgot me. The fifty pounds I had lost came back to my bones until i was one hundred and seventy five pounds again.
From the house I went to my log cabin, from the log cabin I went to the '48 Airstream I had rebuilt. I traveled the east coast in it for a winter and into the months when earth turns to mud, and still the walk waited just outside the doors I hid behind. This last summer I began to hear her again. I would say that it was through the birds that she reached me, but it was more like water sounds from a river that wasn't in a hurry. She knew that I missed her. We weren't done. She was a love I began to wonder how I ever left. With her I understood so much. With her I was clean. With her I was forgiven.
I went to the river because I had lost something. The sound of the river can tell you when to go home, or when to leave bridges.