She wakes me out of a heavy sleep,
the earliest darkest hours of the morning.
Placing her head on the pillow beside me, though she does not rest.
It is her sharp and shivering wakefulness that draws me out of sleep.
I start and then drift off again.
Ah. But here now, in the morning light.
Her face rises up between the gray bank of clouds and the clear blue sky below them.
Watchful. Even as she dissolves back into the wild hills.
© Elizabeth McLaughlin
