30in30, Day 26: "Hugging the Beech"

She palms salt, licking the sea from her hand.
The day spreads out golden over the hills,
but her head aches and she pulls the blinds against it.
The curtain billows in the April wind.
She lies on the floor,
breathing the scent of trees turning green.
She brings her arms up and hugs one to her body;
inhale to open, exhale to close the embrace.
The man in white taught her this.
She imagines the smooth bole of a beech alive beneath her fingers.
Soon she'll return to the woods,
and press her face against such a one,
and greet it as an old friend.
It was there when she was but ten,
her first night in the cabin bearing its name,
in sea green shorts and a braid that would swing when she walked,
the end just brushing her waistband.
She read Ben Hur to a blind girl in the next bunk. 
Then Sam with the red hair like fire loaned her a book by Roald Dahl.
She learned a little ditty 'bout Jack and Diane,
and that Noah built the ark but forgot the unicorn.
She learned the world from the back of a horse,
and the wet delight of making a piñata like a giant sun,
only to burst it later with a big stick and pounce on the candy raining down.
She ate chunks of cool, sweet watermelon by the pool,
her feet in the water and bleach in her hair,
the air scented with chlorine.
Giggling, she learned to kiss with borrowed lipstick and a piece of paper.
She let a counselor teach her the Catholic rosary,
holding it up in the orange glow of the overhead light so she could see Mary etched on the center bead. They played a game of wolf packs,
and she threw her head back and howled in delighted undulations.

The memories make her wild with joy.
She hugs the big tree and laughs into its trunk.

T.A.B. 4-26-13