Time to Spare

At your cousin's wedding
your mother and her sisters
talked of husbands no longer there.
Their eyes whispered,

"Do not be so cautious,
for even love that lasts
is lost."

They wore bangles
bought by men
they thought they would know
forever,
dresses made of silk
they would trade for one last
memory.

A diamond for a touch,
for one warm breath upon a face
lined by time.

A thousand recollections
floating in a champagne stem,
held in shaking hands
that once touched
skin and lips and
never thought about
goodbye

Let us love, you and I,
while we have time
and life and bodies
Now.

Spring!

I don't know if it's just me or if it's an incredibly beautiful spring, but the blossoms this year just pop. I had to take some pics.

Life and Death

When I was a kid, our neighbors had a camphouse out in
the country in Rodney, Mississippi.  In the late
1700 - 1800's, Rodney was a bustling river-port town. 
During the Civil War, it was fired on.  There's a church
there still standing with a cannonball lodged in the
front wall of the building.  After the war, the river
meandered off course, leaving Rodney without its
port.  There's practically nothing there now except for
a few little shanty shacks and hunting camps.

Anyway, my childhood neighbor, Claire, was in town
and wanted to ride out there.  We hadn't been in nearly
35 years or so. So we called my other childhood friend,
Alma, and her friend, Eric, and rode out there.

We weren't sure we'd make it.  The Mississippi River is
at flood stage, and although Rodney is no longer right
on the river, it's still flat bottomland, and floods
occasionally.  We made it out there, although the water
had crept right up to the road where the church is.  As
we were leaving, we talked to a woman helping her
96-year-old mother evacuate the little  shanty house
she's lived in all her life.  She was hesitant to leave,
creeping back across the creaking old plank stretched
over the waters to recheck the lock on the door, only
a few feet from where an alligator had been seen a few
minutes prior.

I was ascared of water mocassins, but Claire was
determined to climb the forested hill behind the church
to see the old deserted cemetery where some of her
ancestors are buried.

The cemetery is amazing.  I thought it was just going
to be one of those family-type plots, but as we walked
further and further into the woods, I realized that there
were headstones poking up out of the weeds and
trees as far as I could see.   We couldn't tell it yesterday
because spring is here in full growth, but if it had
been wintertime and the hills all bare, you would've
been able to tell that one of the rises we were walking
over was actually a gun embankment.

Well, amazing as it is, we didn't see but one snake, but
Alma's called today to tell me she'd found two ticks on
her, even though she wore long jeans tucked into boots. 
I took no such precautions, so we'll see how I fared.

I thought I'd post a few of the pics I took.  It was an
eerie, amazing place, full of magic and mystery.  The
graves date way back to the early 1700's, filled with
the souls of those long dead and buried, and being
consumed by living plants.

On the Road

I've always wanted to "disappear," to go someplace where no one knew me, and I could be anyone I wanted to be and do anything I wanted to do.  After I moved back to Mississippi, I decided to rediscover the Mississippi I'd left nearly 30 years before.  

So I got into my car and drove, wandering through parts of the country by myself that I've always wanted to see, stopping along the way to take photos and see places I remember from my youth.
I found this one street off a cotton field with a couple of old storefronts, all crumbling and abandoned. One had the remnants of a bar with broken pottery still sitting on the counter top. The other was just the shell of the building, open to the sky with trees and vines growing up the floor and walls. 

I stepped inside the door to get a better shot when it sounded like the building was falling down on top of me. I ducked as a huge owl swooped down out of the rafters over my head and into the tree behind the building. 

I checked into the B&B, into a charming little room in a garage behind a big old house once owned by a man who owned a 20,000-acre plantation and killed almost every bear in the state. It's a beautiful house, reminiscent of an English country cottage, right in the middle of town. They've got 12 acres surrounded by Days Inn, Burger King and other tacky establishments. A little piece of heaven in the middle of town. There were three other couples staying at the house. Very nice folks from Kentucky, off on a road trip of their own. They had the whole main house to themselves, while I took the room in the garage. 

That night I went to a liquor store to buy some wine. The security was so tight, I had to pass the money through a slot in the wall, and they passed the wine through a bigger slot. 

"Are you here for the Blues thing?" the lady behind the bulletproof glass asked me. 

"I didn't know there was anything," I replied. "What's going on?" 

"Oh, a bunch of women came in a little while ago saying some woman's in town who's famous -- a singer. They wanted little bottles of wine they could put in their purses." 

Ha! 

So I went to have dinner at a fine restaurant where the food was sublime. I saw the other couples from the B&B there, and went over and introduced myself. 

"What are you doing in town?" one of the husbands asked me. 

"Oh, I'm just here for a little quiet time," I said. "I want to do some writing and photography." 

They were very cordial and invited me for breakfast next morning. Then I went to see the Blues lady. Definitely a hit with the menopausal crowd, of which I realize I'm a member. It was so odd, being in this Blues dive with a bunch of old yuppies with lines around their eyes, wearing their dainty PTA clothes and grinding to the lyrics: 

"Baby, you got somethin' in your toolbox that I aine' got in mine,
Maybe you could use it to show me a good time."

While I was there, the other couples came in. They'd driven all the way from Kentucky just to hear this woman sing. I was standing at the bar when one of the women came up to get a drink. I smiled and said hello. 

 I had a couple of margaritas and watched the crowd, and went home early (around 11 p.m.) The other couples staying at the B&B stayed out 'til about 1 a.m., and looked a little raggedy this morning. But they were nice folks, asking me about my book business and getting all excited when I showed them the book I found at Goodwill by Captain Kangaroo that was signed. 

"Oh, my God! I LOVED him!" 

I did, too. Was it so very long ago? Well, I guess maybe it was. 

That day, I moved over to another B&B that is a little bigger and has more atmosphere. I woke up the next morning to the mournful sound of a train whistle on the tracks. I love that sound, even while it makes me kind of sad. It makes me feel like a child again, all tucked safely into bed and hearing that whistle, feeling secure in the bosom of my home and wondering about the lonely souls out there riding on the rails. 

Someone told me later that the tracks are now defunct and no trains ride them except for the one engine I heard that's owned privately by this fellow who just loves trains. He drives it about a mile down the tracks and back every day, blowing the whistle like a kid with a toy. God, I love small towns.

That morning I walked across the parking lot to have breakfast at this little dive that serves the best scrambled eggs, grits, bacon and toast in town. While I was there, I saw a wizened old Black man with loaded dice playing tricks on a couple of tourists, and bragging about all the places he's been. While I ate my food a cat jumped up on the counter and started eying my plate. 

"You better watch him real close," said the waiter behind the bar. "He sneaky."

 

I wondered if the health department knew about Catty Can (his name). Pretty soon, Catty Can tried to make a move and I swatted at him and said, "Nope! Not today, partner." 

He gave me a wicked, disgusted look and lay down on the counter, waiting for another opportunity until the waiter snuck up behind him and grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and tossed him onto the floor. 

The days passed. I drove all over the state, enjoying my solitude and my newfound sense of freedom, feeling powerful and introspective. I think every woman should take a road trip by herself at least once in her lifetime. It's a trip.

---

Mississippi Music Hall, Clarksdale, Mississippi

While in Clarksdale, I stayed at a sublime little B&B known as The Mississippi Music Hall. It's an old plantation commissary filled with music memorabilia and painted in colors reminiscent of the island for which the bedroom gets its name -- Isla Mujeres. The glass in the commissary windows is cobalt blue, bathing the room in Blues.

It's an attractive place to stay for musicians and music lovers visiting Clarksdale for a taste of the Delta Blues. Conveniently located next to the Delta Blues Museum and across the parking lot from Morgan Freeman's Blues Club, Ground Zero. For information on staying at The Mississippi Music Hall or its sister B&B, The Big Pink Guesthouse, go to: www.bigpinkguesthouse.com or contact TommyPolk@hotmail.com.

Cardinal Sin

When he came, he wandered
down the stone path,
the wind an echo
of a hush, a rush
of air.
He called her name,
but all he heard
was more of the same.

He found her
on a ladder on the porch,
crying.  Four dead cardinals
in a pile lying
by the bench.

She dipped
a rag in soapy
water, wiped
the filmy glass.

"Birds can't tell
the windows from the sky,"
she cried, "and neither can I.
Neither can I."

And when the glass
was wiped tranparent,
she reached down,
picked up the silver
teapot that had sat
tarnishing in the breakfront
for years. She picked
it up, poured water
down the pane.

And his laughter and delight
at such a sight
shattered all she knew.
Birds flew.
Feathers and sunlight.

The View from Here

Bamboo in the Light

Kingston Road, Natchez, MS 2/21/2008

Dreaming

I dreamed
about someone
I see once in awhile.
Not
a friend.  Just
some man.
But
in my dream
his skin
had thinned,
his hair gone
gray, and he looked
fragile.
I don't
even know him,
really.
So why was I crying
when
I woke
with the hands of an
old woman
twisted
in the sheets?

Refugees

Refugees

He walks with me
in the meadows of my mind
through patterns and rhyme
and meters I'd long forgot
until he pointed
at them lying in leaves
of dappled brown.

He taught me how to listen
for the sound of light
on water seen only in
peripheral and gone
if I turn
my face to gaze

to understand the need
for touch, how time
slows down
when the fog comes in
and sound is muffled in a
cool, moist cloud

how loudly silence rings
in trees hissing in the wind
and remembering the
joy of standing underneath
the mossy oak

Strong, like those limbs
that cupped us, children,
unaware that wind
can crush us or caress
and how to know the difference.
Find shelter from the storm.

The Rookery

The Rookery

A cold wind descends.
Moonlight trembles
on the water,
reflecting my
regrets.

The dog like a stone
in darkness sits,
melding into trees
no breeze can dare
betray.

Leaves crackle softly
under feet, my neat
plans scatter
to the sound.

We wait.

Soon, like phantoms
they descend, ballerina
light one moonlit
night, haunting
Egret Lake
at the Bullfrogs' Ball

The sound of pterodactyls
grocking, black legs walking
white wings, sharp beaks
in bleakest fall,
all is egret white.

On its silent perch
one lone blue heron
sits a silent sentinel
a messenger from Hell
Old Grim, himself
to tell us all a story
of the untold ages,
of how the feathers and
their fathers from
the spent volcano
rose again.

Listen closely to the
sound of feathers on
the air, watch the landings,
see the sights
at the Bullfrogs' Ball.

Every evening you can
find them, rattling sabers
telling tales, phantoms
riding on the wind
at the Bullfrongs' Ball.