GATHERING GRAPEVINES
WRAPPING WREATHS
Down along the river on the flood plain there are oaks – 200 years old or so–that have somehow escaped the logging companies which cut the whole county flat by the turn of the century. And around and over each oak, river grapes with vines as thick as my thumb and small bunches of sour, deep indigo grapes.
The river slaps against the stony bank, a cardinal calls “breaker, breaker.” Acorns fall all around pattering on the dry leaves- and disturbed gray squirrels make sharp alarm barks in the high branches.
I set the circle, begin to wrap the vines, over and through, over and through. Balance the circle, keep it even. I wrap this all in – the smell of decaying leaves, acerbic staghorn sumac fruit, the stagnant wetlands.
I wrap them, carry three or four home, fill the old washtub and soak them for a day or two, then let them dry. Add dried Japanese lanterns, tansy and yarrow, a twig from a Mountain Ash with orange berries to keep witches from crossing the doorstep.
wrapping the vines
around their wild music
my hands bleed grape