Rose medicine

At the end of a crumbling track
Lies a long-forgotten barranco

Rocky folds strewn with tumbling rosehips
Known only by the skylark and wild boar

Gathering these garnet teardrops
I weep for a timeless age

When wise women scrambled
Amongst gorse and rosemary
In the shadow of snow-capped sierras

Now, in tattered times
I wander this bereft land

Comforted by tales of sisters
On distant shores
Threading rosehip malas
And offering ceremonial petals
To the fire

A vicious thorn pricks my bare flesh
Crimson blood
Reminds me of that bitter winter
Traversing Balkan lands

Ancestral medicine is strong these days
The wild rose whispers me back
To the path less travelled

Release she says
Let go.