When MeeMaw left for work, I kissed her goodbye, whispered a traveler's prayer after her taillights, and went back inside to lace on my boots. I picked up my stick and headed west down the driveway. I saluted the Confederate soldier who rests in the cemetary and whispered, "Hello again, Jesse Lane. Thank you again for what you did for our people." Then I climbed the cemetary hill, stepped over the electric fence, and plodded the steep hill to the top of the other side of the holler. When I turned to look down, the rising light had sharpened the floor of all things.
Near the crest of the hill, I noticed how Mr. Davidson's barn was framed by the oaks. When postmodern men sneer at poetry, they betray themselves: I know that they have never been alone in such a scene, with such air filling their shallow chests.
A single stalk of coffeebean plant reached up to catch my attention as I sat on the hillside, catching my breath.
And then, not many minutes afterwards, I could see Possum Cough far below. I love this photograph, because it exhibits true perspective: how small our little farm is beneath the majesty of the Clinch Mountains. I like the colors of the woodlot behind the farmhouse, and the layers of timber in the rising slopes behind the place where we live our quiet lives.
Up there, up at the top, sits the most natural pulpit I've ever seen. A felled tree left a slab of its form standing upright on the flat platform of what used to be its trunk. One would have but to step up onto the surface and lean back, using the upright portion for support, fill one's lungs, and bellow out across the valley. I did all of this except the bellowing. But I think I preached just the same. And my congregation was silent, brown-eyed, and dew-cooled.
The recent violent winds felled an old tree at the pinnacle. It now rests on a massive rock, a rock which looks like a half-buried dinosaur, with smooth hide and undulating movement that will never again show forth to living eyes. I sat on it and thought and talked for a while, and then it was time to return to the farmhouse and cook something.
Headed back up the driveway, the greenest tranquility was sitting there, bird-sang and donkey-brayed. Home is the sailor, home from the sea/And the hunter, home from the hill...
MeeMaw's miniature azalea and the unnamed blue groundcover looked ethereal in the early light.
And later in the day, Ernie came over, unasked, and mowed the front (west) pasture for us with his tractor-mower. MeeMaw baked him and Helen and Gabriel a pan of brownies as thanks for the kindness. The pasture looks good, but we pray that someday it will be just as closely-cropped by mammal mouth, and not by internal combustion engine.
A single stalk of coffeebean plant reached up to catch my attention as I sat on the hillside, catching my breath.
And then, not many minutes afterwards, I could see Possum Cough far below. I love this photograph, because it exhibits true perspective: how small our little farm is beneath the majesty of the Clinch Mountains. I like the colors of the woodlot behind the farmhouse, and the layers of timber in the rising slopes behind the place where we live our quiet lives.
Up there, up at the top, sits the most natural pulpit I've ever seen. A felled tree left a slab of its form standing upright on the flat platform of what used to be its trunk. One would have but to step up onto the surface and lean back, using the upright portion for support, fill one's lungs, and bellow out across the valley. I did all of this except the bellowing. But I think I preached just the same. And my congregation was silent, brown-eyed, and dew-cooled.
The recent violent winds felled an old tree at the pinnacle. It now rests on a massive rock, a rock which looks like a half-buried dinosaur, with smooth hide and undulating movement that will never again show forth to living eyes. I sat on it and thought and talked for a while, and then it was time to return to the farmhouse and cook something.
Headed back up the driveway, the greenest tranquility was sitting there, bird-sang and donkey-brayed. Home is the sailor, home from the sea/And the hunter, home from the hill...
MeeMaw's miniature azalea and the unnamed blue groundcover looked ethereal in the early light.
And later in the day, Ernie came over, unasked, and mowed the front (west) pasture for us with his tractor-mower. MeeMaw baked him and Helen and Gabriel a pan of brownies as thanks for the kindness. The pasture looks good, but we pray that someday it will be just as closely-cropped by mammal mouth, and not by internal combustion engine.
Someone once said that all men who love their families cast a long shadow. As I stood on our country road and looked down to where my loved ones always disappear from my view, I saw my own shadow, and I wonder how long it will live in your collective memories.
Rest well, loved ones.
Rest well, loved ones.
