Where I Am From....

A delightful blogger, Molly Bawn has challenged me to write my own take on her wonderful poem/prose about her life story.  You must read it!

 Molly writes with an Irish flow. Delores writes poetry that brings tears. Arleen has wry humor and perspective.  Joanne connects past and present seamlessly.  Dee brings introspection and wisdom with her writing. My own writing is that of a Midwest story teller.  

That said, here is a lengthy post:  

The road home

Take that straight road, the one over there.  Road flows past maple trees, now yellow, bright like birthday candles.  Go on past the corner where the old school house used to be. A mound of crumbled red bricks mark where children once played.

Stay on this road, but not too fast.  Just gaze at those cornfields to the west.  

Good crop this year, tassels are dancing in the breeze, the tangled silk is spilling out the shy ears tightly wrapped  like a present.  Like strands of gold running down the stalks.

Good full corn.  Silk is almost ready to brown.

A row of battered mailboxes are on the left, all people I once knew. Names of people long gone are streaked off.  Strong farmers and patient farm wives.  Good people.  Their paths crossed mine time and again.


That big barn, covered with vines?  Old couple lived on that patch of ground, but their house is almost gone, chewed down by creeping ivy and violent weeds.  Like fingers from the ground wrapping around the wood frame and pulling it into the soil.  

Stretches of field after field drift on across flat land.  Stand of corn over on the right is strong, tall this year.  A parade could hide in the rows.  But the beans on the left?  

Creek flooded its banks, covered the field in knee-deep creek water. Beans turn yellow when saturated roots drown.  Too much water this year, not enough next year.

This angry creek pours it muddy waters out over the fields every spring, but farmers continue planting. "Maybe this year will be better..."  Never is, but farmers stake their lives in hope.

The road will fork off, but a dirt road goes on straight over a quiet creek and by the bluffs.  A rusty old bridge stands astride this wide welcoming creek.  Traveled that road so many times.  

Did my share of splashing in that creek on steaming July days.  So did my folks.  So did their folks.  Life is lived to the fullest in a cold creek on a hot day.

But don’t take the dirt road, although you could, but it’s a long stretch of bumpy back road. It will rattle your bones loose.  And it won't take us where we must go.

Swing over to the road to the left, follow its wide curve like a bow.  Let the road take you slowly, or you’ll fly off into those bean fields.  Don’t want to get stuck out there—that clay mud will suck the car down to the fenders. Seen it happen.

That road will glide over a new wide bridge, put in twenty years ago over angry creek.  Follow the rise to a big house and a mud-splattered truck.  

From there, oh my! from there your eyes will want to rest a bit.

Source

Gaze at rolling land, rich and green.  Fields and cows, barns and houses, trucks and tractors, families with lots of children. 

The Land is everything. Land remains.

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So much life! Awe will steal air from your lungs.  

Take your time, look.  

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Your eyes may want to race over the velvet land.  Land does not give up its secrets with ease, or let you study footprints stamped deep in the earth.  

Ancient stone arrowheads lie just beneath growing wheat, bones beneath corn.  
Old nations crossed over this plain, dwelt on this land, and faded sadly into mists. 

Wagons once rattled along hunting trails. Houses appeared, disappeared.  

Flash, flash.  

One generation to another builds and leaves.  Always shifting into mists in the west.  

The land stays, but people move on.

Source

Wait!  Now, there. 

That is where I am from, that farmhouse right there!  See it?  Two stories of windows, white paint, green roof?  Turn in at the mail box. The name is almost faded out, but it is still a ghost on the tin.

Quick! The north porch, see it?  The begonias are bursting out of their pots this year.  See those boots?  That means Dad is inside, and Mom is watching out the kitchen window for us.

Look now.  The barn over there? The trees made for climbing?  

Run, hurry inside and don’t blink.  

‘Cause if you do, this will all vanish.  

An older post about "Home" can be found here.

Black Is the Color of My Truth Love's Hair

Joan Baez has had an amazing career.  Her voice—that incredible soprano voice—rang out as a voice of our generation.  There are too many roads to take down this topic, the wide genre of her songs.  Instead, the one song that rings clearest in my memory is “Black is the color…”

A question niggles in my brain:  What is it about the color black that pervades the design world?

Why are TV remotes black? Is it possible that Sony or RCA want us to lose the remotes in the dark recesses of sofa cushions knowing that the black remotes will remain hidden?

 

Why are many purse linings black, or nearly black?  Is it possible that, by making the linings dark, little items (nail clippers, lipstick, lip-gloss) will disappear, thus requiring further purchases?

 

Why do fancy dress events involve black/dark suits and dresses?  The ‘little black dress’: Why is it the important dress in the closet?  

For that matter, why do members of the Clergy wear black cassocks, black suits, black nun habits, etc.?  Why?  

In the beginning two questions, the color black perhaps denotes dignity and stylishness.  In the last question, maybe the color black indicates a desire to shed worldly attachments. Just guessing here...

Teenagers seem to go through an ‘all-black-Goth’ stage.  Black hair, black clothing, coal-black eye make-up—this is supposed to shout out to the world that they are individuals making a statement.  

Oddly, when they are all together, they appear to be wearing uniforms.

Spies, burglars, movie villains, and Harry Potter characters all are dressed in black.  The Adams family—stylish black clothing.  Matrix—really cool black clothing. 

Enough of this rant.

Anyway, enjoy this song.

Love

From phone camera

Martha and her Collette had spent much of their fish lives gracing the tank in Dr. Reman’s medical office.  Their job was to flutter their golden fairy fins, float effortlessly from one end of the four foot tank and then back again. 

No sense of time ever ruled in their world.

Martha and Collette had normal fish expectations: food, swim, release waste products.  Repeat. This was absolutely fine.

Then Jerome arrived.  Tiny Jerome.

His job was to buzz around furiously, a gray and browned striped tiny shark-like fish.  Jerome was not there for looks; he was there to eat the waste products and clean algae from the rocks, wafting sea plants, and the castle which served as a place to linger.

Jerome expected nothing else, until he saw Collette.  Gazing into one eye on her side and then the other eye, Jerome sensed a shift in the tank world.

What is more, Collette sensed it as well.

Martha saw the exchange and fluttered in between them.  Jerome sped down to the castle, behind a rock.  He waited, hoping that Martha would forget Collette and wander off to the aerator. 

Then, Jerome darted out, flying through the water to Collette. Their side fins brushed lightly against each other briefly, but just enough to send vibrations of deep emotion shivering through them.

Martha broke up the sensual caress and chased Jerome away.  Watching his retreat, Martha felt the same exultation Collette had felt, the same longing.

Jerome.  Tiny Jerome.  Jerome the Gigolo.

One's imagination runs rampant while waiting in the doctor office.