Cavities
Sitting on the rocks of the Viking graves, We snacked on crackers and watched the squealing gulls and oystercatchers irritated at the intrusion of their hunt and home. Our guide of the Hebrides crouched in a tunneled crevice in the earth where Stone Age people had lived, hunkered, their dark eyes peering out at the pouring rain that now lashes this house called Tighard. A vertebra of a killer whale leans against our dwelling. the spinal cord that once propelled it only a cavity the shelter enduring, the sheltered perishing. We move through the house planning meals. We stoke the fire, keep our journals, think of the past and ask the time, on our own small and quiet quests for food and the ancient longing to be filled. —Janelle Masters
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