A Legend: Bone Woman

The following was written by Isabel Hoskins. She writes thoughtfully speaking through her poetry. You learn that she has come through a life changing battle with cancer. See her blog at Beyond the Map. This is Isabel's writing of BONE WOMAN:

This is the story, the legend, of La Loba, also known as the Bone Woman.

La Loba is an old woman who lives secluded in the desert mountains, a recluse who is fat and hairy and when she speaks she makes sounds like that of an animal more than human words. She keeps to herself and wanders around, waiting for lost people to come and seek her.

LaLabo’s work is to collect bones, mostly the collecting and preserving of bones that might otherwise be lost to the world. Her cave contains the bones of all kinds of desert creatures but it is the bones of the wolf she loves the most. She wanders about the mountains looking for her wolf bones and once she has the complete skeleton, she lays them all out on her cave floor, and sitting by her fire she begins to wait for the song to be birthed in her.

When La Loba is certain the song has come she stands over the bones, raises her arms in a dance and begins singing. As she sings the bones of the wolf begin to join together and grow flesh. She sings, as the animal inhabits fur and she sings, as the tail curls upwards and the wolf creature begins to breathe. She sings as the desert floor shakes and the wolf opens its eyes to life and with a leap, runs out of the cave and out into the desert canyon, howling its way through the mountains.

At some point in the wolf’s running, whether the splash of water from the river spraying over her or the glint of moonlight that comes to rest on the wolf’s fur, the bones that became the living wolf are transformed into a laughing woman who goes running towards the horizon.

And it has been said that if you are lost and wandering across a desert and it’s nearing sundown when the sun melts into the sky, that if you are lucky, La Loba may make herself known, revealing to you something long forgotten, something of your soul.