Cherry Grove

Cherry Grove: A Ghost Tale

All around the old place,

the dead visit. The

day he opened up the trunk

of that sweetgum tree,

and before we saw the

horseshoe hanging inside,

something brushed against

my face. I heard a nickering

far away, and the smell of oiled

leather and candlewax.

A few days later Lloyd

found an anvil half

inside an oak tree, back

by the old barn. It was ten

feet up that tree, and

the color of storm clouds

when the air smells like metal

and electricity breaks

it right in two. They say

a shipwright lived

there once. I know.

I've heard him hammering.

That was before the rumor 

of the slave revolt across 

the road. Nineteen men killed, 

tortured, all for the sake 

of a child's tale. A child

named Obey. No excuses.

The crape myrtle we cleared from

the back forty bled claret-

colored sap, and stuck inside

one old, stubborn knot

was a skeleton key.

The silver lying all around,

tarnished forks and bone-

china plates. Papa said

she burnt that house a’purpose,

took the tram to the train

and left town. Nobody

Ever saw her again.

But to be frank, I don't

believe it.

I saw her walking in the fog

one morning, early. Picking bones,

rearranging bricks,

breaking twigs over and over.

She saw me too.

We've been talking

back and forth, she and I,

between the branches.

~ Elodie Pritchartt

More on South-West by a Yankee - Treatment of Slaves 1835

A description of Natchez, written in 1835 by Joseph Holt Ingraham.
Offered without comment:

"Many of the planters are northerners.  When they have conquered their prejudices, they become thorough, driving planters, generally giving themselves up to the pursuit more devotedly than the regular-bred planter.  Their treatment of the slaves is also far more rigid.

Northerners are entirely unaccustomed to their habits, which are perfectly understood and appreciated by southerners, who have been familiar with Africans from childhood; whom they have had for their nurses, play-fellows, and "bearers," and between whom and themselves a reciprocal and very natural attachment exists, which on the gentleman's part, involuntarily extends to the whole dingy race, exhibited in a kindly feeling and condescending familiarity, for which he receives gratitude in return.

On the part of the slave, this attachment is manifested by an affection and faithfulness which only cease with life.  Of this state of feeling, which a southern life and education can only give, the northerner knows nothing.  Inexperience leads him to hold the reins of government over his novel subjects with an unsparing severity, which the native ruler of the domestic colonies finds wholly unnecessary.

The slave always prefers a southern master, because he knows that he will be understood by him.  His kindly feelings toward and sympathies with slaves as such, are as honourable to his heart as gratifying to the subjects of them. He treats with suitable allowance those peculiarities of their race, which the unpracticed northerner will construe into idleness, obstinacy, laziness, revenge, or hatred.

There is another cause for their difference of treatment to their slaves.  The southerner, habituated to their presence, never fears them, and laughs at the idea.  It is the reverse with the northerner:  he fears them, and hopes to intimidate them by severity."





Related posts:

Southwest by a Yankee

Cocodrie Bayou

I drive through miles
of cotton fields.
White tufts erupt
from bolls
like butterflies
from cocoons.

The Louisiana
delta spreads out,
offers herself
like a lover
with secrets.

She sings primitive
salutations to the sun,
gospels of slaves.

On one side, the fields;
on the other, dark, wooded swamp.

Palmettos punctuate the gloom.
Cypress and still water.

Mounds built by Indians
who weren't from India,
after all, remind me.


This place is ancient.

My father brought me hunting here.
His father brought him.
I miss them.

It seems so
long ago, but it is only an
instant, and I am
just passing through.

I am a storm in summer,
all rush and splash, bluster
and boom,
sudden but brief, leaving only
vapor when I'm gone.

Elodie Pritchartt
09/25/12

Fake News by Vernon Rust

Vernon Rust

There are writers, and then there are storytellers.  Vernon Rust KNOWS how to tell a story, and his memoire, Fake News is filled with them.  Good stories, and true:

"WHEN I WOKE UP IN HOSPITAL, I COULD'NT move my arms or legs.  Oh, I wasn't paralyzed or anything . . . I was in four point restraints flat to the bed on my back.

OBVIOUSLY a victim of mistaken insanity...as this only happens to crazy people, and after all, I, Vernon Rust of mediocre and fleeting songwriter fame, was a lot of things...but insane?

Insane? Mentally incompetent? Honestly?

That's just CRAZY talk! (however, several Doctors and judges seemed convinced enough otherwise to keep me a month or so, ...just to make sure)"

When a book starts like that, I've just GOT to read on.  And I did, almost in one sitting.

I discovered Vernon on a friend's Facebook page.  He was telling one of his impossibly good stories.  So I started following him, and was lucky enough to score a reader's copy of his book.  His stories are gritty and funny, and Rust makes no attempt to whitewash his past, which is punctuated with abusive fathers, illicit drugs, country music stars, rock-and-roll, creative genius, true love, financial highs and lows that are as high and as low as you can get.

Through it all, Rust maintains an optimism, a sense of humor and the wisdom that only one who has lived it all can have.  Rust is a country-music songwriter, and this book is a country-music masterpiece.  I recommend this book unreservedly.  Read it.  You’ll like it.  I promise. To purchase Fake News, go here.

To hear Vernon perform his songs, go here.

Southwest by a Yankee

Painting: Circa 1835 Natchez on the Hill by James Tooley

So a couple of days ago, I typed "Natchez" into the search engine on eBay and came across a two-volume book written in 1835 called Southwest by a Yankee by Joseph Holt Ingraham. It's a description of New Orleans and Natchez, and it's really quite wonderful.

So I wrote my friend Mimi Miller, who heads the Historic Natchez Foundation and told her of my find. She replied that Joseph Holt Ingraham wrote her absolute favorite description of Natchez in that selfsame book.

I'll make a few blog posts as I'm reading along. I honestly think that the closest thing to immortality is in writing your thoughts and leaving those behind. I feel as though I'm inside the writer's experience. It's wonderful. A trip through space and time.

So, for my first share, I give you Ingraham's observations of fellow travelers on a steamboat headed from New Orleans to Natchez.  He was talking about con men, who cruised the river, never on the same boat, lest they be recognized.  Then his attention was drawn to a pious woman:

  "Even the sanctity of the Sabbath is no check to this amusement:  all day yesterday the tables were surrounded with players, at two of which they were dealing "faro;" at the third playing "brag."  And this was on the Sabbath!  Indeed the day was utterly disregarded by every individual on board.  Travelling is a sad demoralizer.  My fellow-passengers seemed to have adopted the sailors' maxim, "no Sunday off soundings."  Their religion was laid by for shore use.  One good, clever-looking old lady, was busily engaged all the morning hemming a handkerchief; when someone remarked near her, "This time last Sunday we made the Balize."

"______ Sunday!  to-day Sunday!" she exclaimed, in the utmost consternation, "Is to-day Sunday, sir?"

"It is, indeed, madam."

"Oh, me!  What a wicked sinner I am!  O dear, that I should sew on Sunday!" ---- and away she tottered to her state-room, amidst the pitiless laughter of the passengers, with both hands elevated in horror and ejaculating,  "Oh, me!  What a wicked sinner!  How could I forget!"



All I can say is I LOVE it!

Time Enough

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 trembling 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 each other,

and drink a toast

to remember.

4/21/2008