I found a bone in the woods today. From a deer most likely, it had markings on it, maybe an animal chewing it or sharpening her teeth.
I held the bone up to my face looking through the hole as if it were a mask.
Like seeing through the eye piece of a camera, I framed the woods in the bone.
When we got to the place that leads though the break in the stone wall and the big fallen tree, my legs began to tingle. I couldn’t ignore the sensation that seemed to be coming from the ground up.
It’s just a deer trail now, but it seems so intentional, the way it takes me right to the old downed tree. So big and decaying it creates a sheltered space. A good den for a small animal. I squatted before it, and saw the woodpecker holes made when it was still standing. Now horizontal, like tiny versions of the ancient caves carved out of the cliffs at Bandelier in New Mexico.
I place the bone inside one of the woodpecker holes. It fit perfectly. I wanted to take the bone home with me, put it on the altar in my studio. But I knew it belonged here. I don’t know how or why, just that it felt right.
It feels good, knowing it’s there, my altar in the woods.
