The Wedding ring
Oh gosh, I loved my wedding ring.
We designed it together with a Navaho jeweler friend.
Gold bands etched with cloud-arcs and rain.
A sun-god in the middle.
We both had the same.
Alas, yucca-glued stones do not stay stuck.
He stopped wearing his at all.
It needed refitting.
Mine started causing finger-pain.
Perhaps pre-saging my wild soul's scream for a new path?
He couldn't understand.
But the ring knew.
What to do with this finger-binding band?
Forty years feels forever.
I safeguarded it in my wallet, nestled-in with the coins.
If you wait long enough, the perfect knowing floats in on its own.
And it happened.
Gazing into pink-tinged puffs of cloud of a Shenandoah sunset,
I saw those cloud-arc images of my ring.
Instantly, I knew.
I ran and fetched my golden ring.
My ceremony-companions chanted and beat drums.
I took a step back and flung the blighted-band.
It sailed over the rail,
arching through the cool, evening air.
And it disappeared forever into the forest below.
Such a monumental and beautiful moment
An honoring and letting go of something precious that had served its time.
It is done.