Kind Eyes

Last night I had a terrible dream, I was a witness to, and then a participant in, an act of infanticide.  A glass bowl was held about the head as a smokey vapor was pressed through a long glass tube below it.  I saw my sister, my mother.  Grey hair about her shoulders.  Begging me not to forsake her and turn away, to aid the nurse in preventing this child to continue further into a short existence of suffering and terrible cancer.  I was “the only one” she told me.  The only one who could help do this, she couldn’t bear it.  The only family strong enough.
“Not me my sister, my mother.”, I pleaded.  Not me.
But I held the glass bowl for the nurse.  My sister, my mother, turned her face and went away.  I watched the nurse with her fine gown of the lightest, beautiful yellow.  It crinkled as parchment in every movement.
Through the morning, awake, I felt pulled down by the dream and it’s memory.  I got on and left home and down the road.
A gathering of crows clung to a spot along the ditch against the winter landscape, where the hills crawl long and vacant speckled with black cedars atop their backs.  As I passed they took flight and I caught a glimpse of the carrion they’d been pecking at.
I searched about my heart and mind for anything, I found the kind eyes of a woman quite older than myself.  It’s easy to recognize the smile and the long glow of the eyes when we are near one another, I’ve always known she looks after me.  One of so very few people that sees through so much about me into a place coated in prairie flowers and morning light.  I finally found myself next to her in quiet solitude, awaiting her kiss and receiving it.  Being held again felt so sweet, I can hardly remember what it really feels like.  I had never imagined us in such a way.  Sometimes, it is true, we do not know all  that we need.