Departure Story
       

On the hilltop above the den, we mount
a tor and stop to pant.
We tell each other what the bell ringing
from the church tower means.
We don't know. We tell the stories anyway.
A bell marks time. Or death.
Or the birth of a queen. Look at our raggedy coats!
Flea-bitten queens for sure.
We've grown out of our dugout shelter,
out of the hanging valley,
onto this stone shelf that tips the wind
straight into our ears. From here,
land falls out and away, first deep heart green
then the gray trimline the flood
left as it crept back down the hill. Behind us
the hills keep rolling. We don't know
where they stop. Maybe the same place
the bell stops being heard.
We figure one will head down and one will go back,
to find out, each on her own,
what happens past the bell's trimline,
where new myths bubble up like magma, heated water,
steaming and smelling of minerals,
voices dissolved and transformed into lessons,
warnings, moments of charged life
that will not die alone without being told.

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Copyright © 2018 Abby Chew All rights reserved
from A Bear Approaches from the Sky
The Word Works
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission