Stubborn children forced to pause and pose before the hearth in the cabin in the woods in the childhood in the life he'd built in the happy time.
He pulls the tattered box From under the bed, studies each fading moment for clues.
The lamp sheds no new light On the mystery of us.
The smell of dust, the screen door’s slam, the island in the pond saddles in the shed, the boat, the chill, the sweat, the water, the shadow and the light the silence of a Sunday night waiting while he locked the gate.
Turned the key On another memory.
The sandbar, Alligator gar and Busch beer in a pull-tab can. Dinosaurs, all gone like the sound of a horn on a barge, first large then drifting away.
He puts the pictures back, Hopes the phone won’t ring, bringing something new to grieve. Lying back, he sighs, Closes his eyes and waits for the reckoning
~ March 3, 2010
All the artists set up around the courthouse square beneath the oaks, the resurrection fern swollen and green with last night's rain.
The morning misty and damp and strewn with color, the smell of barbeque mingles with hay. A skinny Catahoula hangs around the cooking trailers, hoping for a handout.
I buy pulled-pork sandwiches for two -- one for the dog, one for me. I watch her bolt it down as a friendly cattle farmer stops to tell me he'd bought her a hot dog a few minutes before.
Camouflage is definitely in at the Deer and Wildlife festival. Don't be caught dead without it.
Didn't know what to expect, but the dead moose being draped over a form for mounting, his lips hanging loosely off the side, is a shock.
The air is filled with the sounds of turkeys and ducks, made with wooden calls by craftsmen next to artists painting things from life.
And the people.... The obese Black woman with a blooming onion the size of a football on a plate, all for her.
The little girl in cowboy boots and shorts, skinny legs so cute it breaks your heart, just because. She has a puppy on a leash. Balloons tied in her hair, her face painted like a cat.
The baby in the stroller, leaning in to snag whatever is in reach.
The friends sitting on the corner, the same conversation they've been having for 40 years.
Doctors, bums, wives, bankers, lawyers, maids, babysitters, boyfriends, girlfriends, children, vendors all in motion as the band plays the 70s greatest hits, going round and round and round.
