Gentle With Earth's Bounty

Her frame drew me from a distance. She stood on slender legs gazing at the sky. She seemed lost in the magic of the clouds. Her family was camped nearby and she had strayed into the cool forest above the campground. I was a descendant of the Sioux and my parents knew I would explore away from our house for several hours.    
     
The stealthy courtesies I’d rehearsed with girls at school drew her in; so naive was she. She was a child of the affluent northeast, seeing rough country of the west for the first time. Surely she sensed the chase as layers between us broke down through conversation and laughter. We scrambled up rocky ledges and deeper into the forest. Finally we touched and tumbled to the ground in celebration of our shared humanness amid this wild landscape.      
     
Beneath a spruce canopy I painted her soft face with the ancestral desires she drew forth to mark my trophy. Her flesh lay silent on a carpet of undisturbed needles packed over thousands of years. She was an exhausted prey on this speck of earth, gasping the thin air and waiting to be finished.      
     
Resting in her arms, I felt the chase beginning anew. Looking up from her chest, I saw her face shining in the waning light as her tears mixed with my first juices. She sighed as I rose slowly over her and wiped a tear from her cheek. I cupped her face and whispered, “Of all this forest, you are the most beautiful.” Her face warmed with a blush and her wet lips formed an even smile.    
     
I hovered over her warmth like a wolf admiring a young deer overcome by the chase. The forest was silent and smelled of ancient decay in this soil of my ancestors.  She breathed deeply as I placed my hand between her small breasts to feel the gentle thumping of her life.    
   
I lowered my eyes to whisper a prayer she could not hear. “Thank you Great Spirit for this gift from your bounty.” From the puffy clouds above I sensed the eyes of my ancestors looking down and a gust of wind whispered, “Be gentle with this gift.” Only the spruce towering above us heard her breathy whimper as I pressed down into her womb-warm center to take full possession of my prey.