Offering

Lesley Stanley Roberts

As we reach the fallen tree, my son trips on a stick and lands knee first in the dusty snowfall. Dirt peppers his wet hands, and I remember too late that his mittens are on the kitchen table. He presents his fingers to me, and I kiss them. All better now. His fear of small branches matches my worrisome mind— there used to be three in our family. I watch the scraggly group of pine trees as they sway and creak and converse across acres. Every motion is a whisper and each sound an expression in nature’s tongue.

This is our daily ritual. “Walk, Chip,” my two-year-old says, pointing to our 100-pound-dog by the door, deep brown eyes pleading. We bundle into heavy coats and Carhartt pants, and I cover my son’s dirty blond hair with a beanie hat, the color of an Oriole’s belly. Long whisps reach down his neck as the baby curls hold tight like memories I don’t want to forget. 

Chip’s paws thwap like the galloping hooves of a racehorse as he scrambles around, kicking up snow and earth, my toddler shrieking with delight. A smile reaches his rosy cheeks, and I am happy that we get this moment. He reminds me of my late husband, Adam, pointing to a turkey strutting in the field years ago, “I love that we see wildlife.” His city upbringing had never afforded him this view. But within eight months of living in the farmhouse resting on six acres, Adam died.

At the clearing, Chip sprints to the brush pile, a mound of thick, cut trunks and shrubs that still fill out green in the summer. But in the winter, it takes the shape of a sleeping giant. Its massive frame huddles down and the wind tickles at its rounded back. It waits to awaken when does give birth to their fawns and tiny seeds sprout in the nearby field.

A rabbit runs out, and Chip narrowly misses him. Some mornings, our footsteps disrupt a group of deer eating grass and their long necks raise to the noise.

I wonder: What is the weight of snow on a buck’s back?

With antlers high, he offers an exchange. When he smells the saline and my sore muscles struggling to keep up, the buck will scrape away the slush with his hoof and reveal the spot where the stillness ends and the deep roots of the land shift. There are three of us again. Temporary solace replaces everyday ache.

We turn back to home. Faint puffs of smoke from the neighbor’s wood stove burn at the back of my throat. We’ve felt our magic for today.