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The Thirteenth of August
Today would have been her 103rd birthday, and her absence these nine years has left a divot on my life’s surface. I miss her, and I am glad she isn’t here to see what has become of her country and her region. Seeing such ugliness would have grieved her tough, hidden old heart. Her middle name was Viola, which she hated. I always loved it, thinking it had a Southern literary lilt to it, like Eudora or Flannary, and I would sometimes address her by it, which enraged her. “Viola,” I’d say, “Reckon what it would take to get you to make me some bacon for supper?” And she would…
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Her Majesty
In late afternoon yesterday, I prepared to take our household trash to the disposal station north of us. I gathered the bags and went outside to load them, and I noticed a large bird’s nest on the ground beneath the weeping willow tree. The day had been gusty and the wind had taken the intricate structure down. I started to just ignore it for the time being, but that curious little voice inside me urged me to go look at the nest. There might be eggs inside, said the voice. So I went to the nest, marveling as I always do at the workmanship and careful design a bird can…
- Daily Life, Holy Days, I Never Thought I'd Be In This Situation, Paintings, Photographs, Prayers, Reflections, Saints, Short Stories
Feast of the Maid
He was feeling low that day, with all the regrets and bad decisions and missed opportunities of a lifetime revolving before him like a carousel, pulling him into that silent despondent cave where he sometimes found himself, with warmth and light and hope far outside, seemingly unreachable. Those moments felt like eternity, and eternity troubled him. The phone rang and he answered it, providing the lengthy greeting that was by now so natural for him to recite, the greeting ending with “How may I help you today?” The voice was female, faint, and warbly. “I need some help.” “I’d be glad to help you, ma’am. Is there something in particular…
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Winter’s Final Friday
When she began speaking, her voice was a low cello moan, Within a few minutes, she poured the tears of today’s life , sobbing out the the bitterness of an inhaled breath of misery. As she talked, her voice became a viola, then a violin, then a bass, then back to the cello, but always, always, the pulling of the dusty bow across the singing strings, the overeager squeak of the changed strokes, the whisper of her engraved finger-pads on the stretched strands of gut. The etude, the very composition itself set down in dots and flags of salty water on the staves for the sheer purpose of challenge and…
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What Tumbles Out
I have been reading, thinking, pondering. I have been living and breathing. I have been observing. Rain and night are here now, and it will not be warm again for a while. What is my chief desire for my remaining days? What will I die for — that is to say, what will give my death meaning? Do I fear death….or do I fear not mattering at the end of my days? What is my inner sense of what I must do, and what I must cease doing? The answer is within me, like the slumbering sliver within a cold seed. Away with the wispy existence, the inner fixation that…
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Febyooerry Beguines
Ah, February. When we are forced as a country to come to terms with how rayciss America is. Because why else would those politicians assign Black History Month to the shortest month? We were spared the ice sheet that fell down on Texas, Arkansas, and Missouri, and we were grateful. We’ve been down that road before, and it ain’t something we want to repeat. A couple of years after we bought this farm, we were hit with an ice storm. The fences around the chicken coop were bowed over to the ground, having become glittering drapery for the poor beleaguered girls inside the henhouse. Massive limbs from the old pine…
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Paw
He was not my kin, but perhaps someday I will find that he was, after all, one of my people. My only connection to him is long gone from my life, an ill-fated romance birthed in high school. But she introduced me to Paw, and so I am somewhat indebted to her for bringing me into his eccentric and loveable orbit. Paw was what we used to call a coon-ass, born and bred down in Louisiana’s swamp country, that murky and mystical patch of America with its legends and lore, its distinctive patois and food all a part of the myths of the Cajun people. He and his wife, Granny,…
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Sunday Evening, Full Dark
I toted an extension ladder about 100 yards this evening and I feel like I fought with the devil all day. My lassitude isn’t helped by the supper Mrs. Orr fixed, which was smoked pork chops, butterpeas with bacon, cornbread, and baked taters. We took all of the dogs for a walk in early evening, and it seems to have worn them out. Usually at this time of night, they’re getting on our nerves and testing the limits. Right now, it’s snores, cubed. We did a bit of our own snoring earlier today. My wife and I kwiled up and took a long, long nap. We woke up, assessed the…
- Bluebelle, Daily Life, Dixee, I Never Thought I'd Be In This Situation, Jinx, Mrs. Orr, Photographs, Reflections
Little Things
I sat up late Friday night watching Kenneth Branagh’s Hamlet. Fatigue forced me to watch the conclusion the next day; I awoke at 200 am with my head on Bluebelle’s hip. I believe we were both snoring. My heart is sad this morning, but it has nothing to do with the brooding Danish prince. Yesterday morning, while the sun was slanting down through the trees, I went to walk in the woods. The beams of light from our life-giving star were as solid as blonde pine joists, as substantial as anything into which I might drive a nail, as anything onto which I might hang an old family photograph. I…
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At the Curtain of Dusk
During a recent trip to the county dump, I tossed all of our garbage into dumpsters, then took a baggie of dry dog food from the front seat and poured the cup or so of food onto the gravel. I didn’t see the little cat that has greeted me for a while now, and I called to her, but she didn’t show. Driving out of the parking lot, I noticed for the first time a sign that warned against feeding feral cats, and indicating that anyone caught doing so would be considered the cat’s owner and would be responsible for damages and any fees incurred. I shrugged it off, but…