The Twelfth Of Ever

We slept in our recliners again last night, and it was a good sleep, as soundless and swaying as if we had been in the depths of the salty sea. Good until 1:30 AM, that is. That was the hour Jinx decided to say hello to his cousins, the coyotes, who were up on the far ridge singing their aria to the open face of the moon. He was right under the windows behind us, and he chuffed one short bark, then lifted his voice in a baritone howl that lasted a good quarter of a minute. I sat up and felt the atavistic hair on the back of my neck stand up. I listened…but that was the only sound Jinx made. It took me some time to return to sleep, though, because I kept waiting for him to do it again. Then the chilly room and the soft comforter in which I was wrapped worked their interactive magic and I slid back down into that country from which a spotted dog rousted me.

Today marks 155 years since the last land battle of the American Civil War was fought, in Palmito Ranch, Texas. It was a Confederate victory. I often think of those rows of butternut-clad boys, most of them farmers and ranchers, fighting against those they considered tyrants, praying to God for victory and their voices gradually becoming softer and then stilled as the outcome of the four hellish years became clear. To believe that one is in the right and to seek God’s blessing and favor, and then to receive no blessing, no help, no sign…who among us has not felt the bitterness in our blood when we were in such a situation?

More and more these days, I am aware of my mortality, of the very real possibility that each morning may be my last. One cannot discuss such things freely these days, lest one be accused of being morbid or negative. Even in Christian circles, where the members of the circles claim to believe that we’re just sojourners here and that something better awaits us on the other side of death…I can tell that most of these people don’t really believe what they claim to believe. Just as the Roman Catholic church proved that its long decades of official reverence and belief in holy places like Lourdes are just pious blather, most Christians demonstrate what they really believe when drawn into a discussion of final things.

The thing about honestly facing death and what lies beyond it is this: it does a marvelous job of scouring away froth and foolishness from one’s waking hours. It brings around the acidic reality of what one has been, what one is likely to be, and what one’s life may or may not mean. I live in what used to be called Indian country. The coyotes up on the ridge very likely sing their nightly songs over the unmarked graves of men, red and white, who once roamed these mountains with weapons in their hard hands, men who met their deaths and whose bones now rest beneath the rocky soil. Did they think of victory, of meaning, of destiny, of eternity?

Who will sing above my bones, above your bones?

~ S.K. Orr