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A World Diminished
It sits just off the highway a few miles from the turnoff to our farm, a squat, unremarkable building in the middle of a blacktopped lot, two gas pumps out front. Two donkeys live in a corral adjacent to the building, and customers sometimes saunter over and offer treats to the pair. It’s the Market, and for almost four decades, Danny owned and ran the place. Danny’s market was one of the first places we patronized when we bought our place years ago. From the get-go, he was a genial shopkeeper, helpful and gregarious. In addition to groceries, cigarettes, beer and whatnot, the market stocks a large variety of useful…
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The Trip and the State of All
I spoke at length today with an aged woman. She told me about the death of her husband a month ago. I expressed sorrow for her loss and the void it must have left in her life. She thanked me, then shook her head. “But you know,” she said, “we had a good life together, a good long life. And he went home to Jesus just as easy as pie.” I liked that, and I asked her to elaborate. This is what she told me — “He’d been ailing for some good little while, and one night, he seemed to get his strength back. I cooked him a good supper…
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Septuagesima Sunday
There was snow on the ground this morning, but it was all gone by noon, a quiet rain melting it all down into the winter grass, clearing the way for more on the way overnight. Jinx and I did a fair amount of rambling, and I spent quite a bit of time examining the buds on the bushes and shrubs in the woods. The green is slumbering, but it will awake. Will Arthur ever awake? Or will his England stagger on without him, growing colder and more pecked-apart by the hour? I envy those who have legends. Here, in my haunted South, we have no more legends. We have kudzu-choked…
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Old Man In Winter
This morning the air is balmy and mild after a night of heavy rain. The temperature is supposed to rise to about 60F today, which will be a nice break from the grip of cold. A nice break for my joints, as it were. When I opened the door a while ago to let Jinx out, I could smell a skunk on the air, and I hoped that Jinx would not find the aroma delightful and decide to go investigate further. I have recently spent much time thinking about my life and what remains of it. Sometimes the plainest facts elude us until one day when they come home with…
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Despicable Week
His name was Bill, and he meant something. We weren’t close friends, but I enjoyed Bill’s presence and appreciated his gentle, self-deprecating manner. The last time I saw him, he was walking with a cane, like I do now in the evenings when Jinx and I go for walks. He always had a smile and a shrug and a clear, blue-eyed gaze of friendliness and curiosity. He died a few days ago. An observant neighbor, noticing that a yard-putterer like Bill hadn’t been outside on a fine, mild November afternoon, went to his door to investigate. She found Bill in his bed, and the medical examiner later determined that he’d…
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The Fabric Of Sadness
I have a friend — we’ll call her Lydia — whom I haven’t seen in several months. The last time we met, Lydia told me about her brother, Jake, who had recently had a massive, debilitating stroke. At the time of the event, Jake had been caring for his girlfriend, who had suffered a similar stroke some months prior. While describing their sad plight, Lydia said, “They’re all each other have. They pretty much just lay in bed and comfort each other by talking to each other.” I promised to pray regularly for all of them. Yesterday, I saw Lydia again, and the first thing I asked her was how…
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All Saints Day
“Mom? Why did Jesus have twelve opossums? I mean, what did he do with them?” — Lizzy Beck This morning during my walk with Jinx, I was struck by how absolutely silent the world was. My own steps were the only sound in the pewter air. It was almost easy to believe that last night the air had been full of ghosts and spirits of ill-will, because the early Sunday hours were so clean, so spotless, so purified. Surely all the saints were watching as I crunched gravel beneath my boots and Jinx’s tail cut the air like a buggy whip. Into my mind came the opening line of Poe’s…
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One Day More
Another electric color day in these mountains. The month is half over, which means the scenery will soon diminish and dull itself. But for now, it is a boon to the soul. I did a bit of spray painting when I got home this evening. Didn’t seem like that big of a deal. But then I walked into the bathroom and saw myself in the mirror. I think I screamed. Cirque du Face. Tragic, tragic times. Did you know that errant spray paint can affect the little hairs inside one’s nostrils? *** When Jinx and I walked this evening, the bats were thick in the air over us, swooping and…
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Hard Old Life, Part iii
Dear Mother, Gone are the days, and can this really be? Six years to this very day since I got the call and learned that you had slipped out of this life and into the next. My strongest memory of that day is not of a sense of grief, but rather the self-centered thought, “Now what do I do? I’m an orphan now.” And also, “I can’t talk to her anymore. Where did she go?” And that’s the question, isn’t it, Mother? Where did you go? I have no way of proving it to the satisfaction of the refrigerated bean-counters of today’s Christianity, but I know that sometimes you are…
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Nineteen
Nineteen I am standing, I am watching on the strait of southern grass through which the fickle current of fogs undulates in the early part of day before the skyfire lifts enough to sear it off. I do not notice the hawks above until I see my dog’s muzzle tracking them; the most sky-aware dog I’ve ever seen, heart all witched with things that glide and soar and perch and sing. We move along and bees begin their sorties across our path, seeking the remaining sweetpea and Rose of Sharon, saddlebags packed with gold, hourglass ever before them as they try and outfly the time when frost will sheet their…