A Companionable Silence
by Carol Despeaux Fawcett
This morning in my garden, there is a quiet that old women love, a companionable silence that reminds me of a neighbor who lived at the top of our hill when I was young. She hired me in those bright springs, those long summers to help clear her property. Rubber boots covered one-quarter of her tiny frame—her face a map of weathered furrows like the root systems in her woods. Together, we dragged branches downed by wind and threw them over her bank. The sound of seagulls and the stink of low tide reached us even in her deep woods. Lit by treetop halos of sunlight, we spoke little. No painful stories of her son’s death. No talk about what was going on at home from me. Just the rich smell of earth, and of things going back to earth. Orange and white mushrooms growing up the sides of trees, tiny stairs to nowhere. The caws of crows and cries of Steller’s jays cutting through treetops like buzz saws. A circle of colored stones, smooth beneath my fingers, marked her last companion’s grave—a black lab named Ivan. Above Ivan—a swarm of dragonflies—iridescent against the coming night. I came back again and again, through junior high, through high school. There were always branches to drag. Wood to burn. Words to still.
Carol Despeaux Fawcett lives in the Pacific Northwest and earned her MFA degree from Goddard College. She is an award-winning poet published in 34 Orchard, Isele Magazine, Birdhouse Magazine, Dreich Magazine, Out There Literary Magazine, Santa Fe Literary Journal and other journals. Her memoir and poetry won first place in the Pacific Northwest Writer’s Contest. Her first book of poems is The Dragon and The Dragonfly and her website is www.cdfawcett.com.