The days were long and the years were short, the old mother said

At Sangre’s desert feet I wake from a nap after a week with my children and grandson under towering evergreens, breathing in the Sound. I jolt in sharp panic, confusion that years of constant attention, proud presence, babies at my sleeping breast in family bed for years, the books and books and books I read, growing cast of character voices, countless steamed broccoli florets and chicken and sack lunches of carrots, peanut butter and jelly, apples sliced, sippy cups washed, school work begged and dallied, sleepless fevers and yellow stained cloth diapers and tooth fairy notes in curly script, the realm of naked toddlers, dancing wildly on rocks and cawing like ravens, bed jumping and good night kisses, all of it, all of it, over, memories faded but for videos and photos I fear will never be printed, just linger as fragile code. I rouse in slow motion dread. Did it happen? Where did it all go? My life now spread before me in service of others’ children, my life expanding and shrinking toward what? Time for myself? What I dreamed when my children were young and now is barely here in snippets a teacher steals before breakfast, after dinner, with her exhausted husband? My bed the only place I’m free. My body’s nerves, the tree of me, three-dimensional history of lost memories, beg me to dig myself up, careful, root ball. Or simpler yet, or too severe, take a branch with my knife, replant myself, new cutting, at my grandson’s feet.

with thanks to Carissa for the title