Forest Reverie

© 2024 Chris Orr

The widow sleeps in a teardrop camper. Her bed is sweet. Spring is right outside the curved wooden door. Blossoms and the bright new tips of conifer scent the air. Birdsong tickles her ears. The peace is welcome after the city days of family, friends and all the loving tears of loss, support for their shared grief.  

Her darling husband is no more. His death came before this glorious spring. She is sad he cannot enjoy its aromas, the sights of the fresh dresses that bloom like flowers in the city streets. He sparked on that, in the many springs they had together.

 

Night comes, velvet, soft and unstoppable. Stars arc over her solitary camp site and the dark points of redwoods reach to infinity. 

 

She summons the ghosts into her lair, feels the power of that summoning. Here are her husband and her lover. The two of them together, something they politely avoided in their lifetimes. But now they are ghosts and her wishes are meant to be fulfilled. It is the way the dead can comfort the living when there is love there. A bidding, a calling, a wish fulfillment, sprouting from grief. A garden of wishes, lavender, narcissus, urgent sprouts of new desires, a way to find the heat of spring emerging. 

 

The widow lies back in her camper bed, allows the ghosts to surround her, two mischievous spirits. One who liked cunnilingus so much he hasn’t given it up as a ghost. He guides her fingers to follow his phantom tongue. The other liked kissing so much, he bestows breezy caresses as she sighs with the memories. Her beloveds are bees reveling in blossoms. The charitable and kindly ghosts hover over her, switching from lips to pussy to the curves here and there of her whole body. 

 

She closes her eyes to see her ghosts better. She feels their generous dance. They are there for her, caressing her the ways they know and in all the ways she loves. She moans, sees colors, falls into a dazed happiness to have them so present in her camper in the forest. 

 

The teardrop camper holds her in its magic droplet, a dream brought on half awake, half asleep, the gentle draught of Puck’s blossom on her eyes, the balm of love on her body. 

 

She comes in tears. To be reunited with these sweet spirits puts a tender coda to a long sunny day. She drifts to sleep, knowing she will not wake to coffee brewing, to bustling camp, but she is satisfied and whole. She can go on. It is green new spring.