Park Bench Crone

So there she is, a park bench crone, mother of the listless, the passing-by; head bowed, caught between dark and light I sense her yet. There she is, she’s grown beyond root and branch, at peace despite the incontinence of an unlooked for wisdom. And there I am, of a sudden snagged by her knurled spell as if she were the Virgin Mary, and I a stumbling beast wandering through her stable. “Look at the sky.” She wheezes not looking upon me. It is hard to hold up my cripple-necked creature, to force my knotted spirit to blunder up into the muddy air; low clouds press shut, pewter trap doors forming a sunken roof. I want to keep my silence let only my hot breath snort through stupefied nostrils but there, on her creaky bench a crone radiates, as a young girl would holding her newborn joyfully up to the heavens. I surface, my mood rocketing upwards to a roofless place where the ages, are all still babes rocking in a shining crib. Shoulders back and head high I stroll past her. “Good morrow mother,” I say with a light-head (the archaic phrase seems appropriate, as if now were already tomorrow). “Good morrow good beast, will you witness”? “I shall wise crone,” I reply, “for am I not almost an angel, part conjurer, part diviner, part beatific daemon, a human thing, growing to be ever ageless.” Together we both laugh out loud again as children may do.