croning ceremony

i have yet to learn how to stop catching
on fire. i hope one day i can be 
a wisdom to someone. that they will say,
"teach me what the mailboxes taught you." 
i am less & less sure about the color of water. 
once a teacher told me in elementary school 
that the water is blue because the sky is blue which
prompted me to ask, "why is the sky blue?"
she moved on. the sky is blue because
it is worried & sometimes because it is furious.
i saw someone i know had a croning ceremony.
they gathered & knit her a crow of fingers.
she is old now & she is stunning & she is 
lighting fires instead of taking them. i feel
skeptical of the word "wisdom" but especially
in association to myself. most of my lessons are
un-lessons. i joke that in the village times i would
have been dead a long time ago from trying to eat
the poke berries that grow so bright in august. 
maybe i could have been the test creature.
the learning point where the other would find out
that not everything glowing is edible. that not
all bruises are on the surface. a stomach is
a resting place & sometimes a cage. i keep 
all the birds i can. i have to admit i do fantasize 
about being croned. about people coming to me
with their fears & their trials so that i can give them
haphazard advice. kiss the tree. climb the boy.
when you catch on fire, don't try to put it out.
instead, walk somewhere other people can see.
it is raining today in the spring so that means
the toads will be talking. i go outside to see if
any of them are interested in being my mother.
of course i have a mother but i am greedy.
none of my elders ever tried to give me wisdom.
instead, they fed me. pastrami. toll house cookies.
sitting on the shag carpet. their houses turning 
into trampolines. maybe wisdom is just a story 
between our skin & time. the toads sing. 
my hair falls out. my ancestors' bones, windchime.