I met her there last week, swathed in her earthy robe.
She spoke of incidentals, her aches and pains, the need to continuously gather firewood, the pro's and cons of forest life...the loneliness.
When prompted, with a gift of good tobacco, she told me of her best love. A youth of such tender beauty, of such delicate expression...and exquisite passion....and so brief an encounter, just four lost days of the most intense sensation.

The realization of love.

With the rising morning mist the curling elevation of senses spiraling within, beyond the sen-sate, beyond the purr of ecstasy,
beyond the mortal, mind numbing bounds of ordinary expectation...

And then he was gone.

"Leaving me as you find me now", she said, "old bent and depleted....but unsuspectingly, I find myself replete... for I have touched the very face of God and kissed the Devils hand".

She smoked her pipe, sitting quietly with me by the fire, she gently thanked me for the tobacco and the companionship and bade me, farewell with crinkled old eyes of good humour ....
and with that, and the knowledge that I had met someone of consequence, I took my leave.

M.
For Patty