Milk for the Road

Before a journey you offer milk: a wooden spoon, a flick of the wrist, white arcs thrown to the sky and the four directions so the road will be kind. The herder family I camped beside performed it at dawn for their departing son, and then the mother put the spoon in my hand, because my road was longer.

My first arc was a disgrace and the second was worse and the third rose and hung against the morning exactly as it should, and everyone cheered, including, I want to believe, the sky.

The photograph caught the third throw, my eyes following the milk the way you follow anything you have finally done right. Whatever the theology, the aerodynamics were correct. The road has been kind so far.