Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Beloved, Do Not Be Astonished At The Fiery Trial
These words keep after me, and pursue me to the uttermost. I'm glad they do; there's something about being in touch with the struggle that makes more sense to me than almost anything else. Except sometimes, when other, more lovely things make more sense. But those things bloom like overnight flowers, spots of warmth in a tepid dark that lasts for a while and drains away. The light in the morning is always blue and cool to the touch. Everything looks the way it should, if not the way I want in all seasons.
Monday, September 27, 2010
What Not To Eat At A County Fair Near Corinth, Mississippi
Note: What follows is an excerpt from a story that I've had in progress for a number of years. I think it wants to be a short novel when it grows up. The characters are my own creation; sadly, The Slugburger is not. The dialogue you'll read here is a loose adaptation of an exchange I had with a coworker a lifetime ago down in Selmer, Tennessee. Selmer's a fine and lovely town, but I don't expect to see it featured on The Food Network any time soon.
For just a few minutes, I forgot about Russel Franks, his missing daughter, and the retainer he still owed me. The hissing lines of the Scrambler’s hydraulics fell silent as the gyrating monstrosity ground to a halt. A gaggle of preteenagers stormed off down the sawdust midway to seek other thrills, while the group in queue fidgeted and wiggled, waiting their turn to have the contents of their bellies churned to a froth. “It’s a what?” I took my change and blinked a couple of times at the sandwich vendor, leaning forward an inch or two to make sure I heard him right the next time. The greasy paper bag in my hand suddenly seemed less innocent than it had a moment ago. The man in the little open-sided trailer kitchen fixed me with a look that was two parts amusement and one part defiance. He repeated, “It’s a slugburger.” I swallowed and nodded. To my credit, it only took me about three seconds to get back up to speed. I smiled and said, “Okay then, just how many slugs goes into one of these treats?” He stared back at me, ratcheting the defiance component up to two parts, bleeding the amusement back to about one. He folded his arms across his dingy white uniform shirt and waited for me to either leave or rephrase my question. I was sure I could win him over; I just needed to take a different tack. “Well, what exactly is a slugburger? And long as I’m asking, why do you call ‘em that?” I was still smiling, careful not to show any teeth; I think I heard once that the locals took that as being too aggressive. Or forward. Or something. Mr. Slugburger assumed an air of world-weariness that was remarkable in a forty-year-old who had probably never been a hundred miles from home in his life. He launched into his own version of The History of the Slugburger. “Well, what a slugburger is, is a cereal patty. There’s no meat in it, less’n you count the lard that kinda holds the cereal together in the deep fryer,” he said, gesturing over his shoulder to the two bubbling fry vats installed against the little trailer’s far wall. A stack of uncooked patties waited beside the fryers. They were shaped more or less like hamburgers, but there the resemblance ended. They were a sort of yellow color for which I have no previous point of reference, and rather lumpy. A pair of flies buzzed lazily in a holding pattern over the stack, as if slugburgers were uncharted territory for them, as well. The man continued, “And as for the name, that came from back in the Depression.” He leaned down into the window and rested his elbows on the formica counter inside. “Back then, meat was scarce if you weren’t a farmer. Somebody came up with a way to make a patty out of meal and lard, fry it up in a pan, and put it on a bun like a burger. Made a big hit at all the little county fairs and such, where you could buy one for a nickel, which some folks used to call a slug. So you see where the name come from.” He stood up, pulled a grimy towel from the waistband of his black trousers, and wiped his hands. “Yeah. I do see,” I replied, slipping in a quick sideways glance at the bag, which was by now pretty saturated with drippin’s from the two sandwiches and the order of fries I had bought. “They’re really good, once you get used to the taste. A lot of folks that grew up around here won’t eat a meat burger.” The man turned to drop the next batch of slugburgers into the fryer. He looked over his shoulder to dispense one last piece of wisdom: “And remember, long as you’re here, if you want a meat burger, you have to specify “meat hamburger,” and don’t just ask for a burger. You’ll get a slug ever’ time.” I thanked him for the tip, walked halfway across the fairgrounds, and dropped the bag into a trash bin beside the Tilt-A-Whirl. So far, my visit to Fayette, Mississippi was beginning to look like a real waste of time. I thought about finding my car and getting back across the state line. I could find someplace on the interstate where I wouldn’t have to specify whether or not I wanted my hamburger made of lard and oatmeal, and still make Nashville by midnight to boot. I looked across the open field adjacent to the fairgrounds that had been cordoned off for parking. It was that elusive hour before twilight when the sun is gone from view, but somehow manages to brighten everything with a diffuse glow that is far more pleasing than the harsh orange haze of sundown. The round hills in the distance were a patchwork of timber and hayfields and seemed to be lit from within. If it hadn’t been for the shrieking machinery behind me and two acres of cars and trucks that looked like cast-offs from a demolition derby in front of me, it would have been a damned fine moment, indeed.
For just a few minutes, I forgot about Russel Franks, his missing daughter, and the retainer he still owed me. The hissing lines of the Scrambler’s hydraulics fell silent as the gyrating monstrosity ground to a halt. A gaggle of preteenagers stormed off down the sawdust midway to seek other thrills, while the group in queue fidgeted and wiggled, waiting their turn to have the contents of their bellies churned to a froth. “It’s a what?” I took my change and blinked a couple of times at the sandwich vendor, leaning forward an inch or two to make sure I heard him right the next time. The greasy paper bag in my hand suddenly seemed less innocent than it had a moment ago. The man in the little open-sided trailer kitchen fixed me with a look that was two parts amusement and one part defiance. He repeated, “It’s a slugburger.” I swallowed and nodded. To my credit, it only took me about three seconds to get back up to speed. I smiled and said, “Okay then, just how many slugs goes into one of these treats?” He stared back at me, ratcheting the defiance component up to two parts, bleeding the amusement back to about one. He folded his arms across his dingy white uniform shirt and waited for me to either leave or rephrase my question. I was sure I could win him over; I just needed to take a different tack. “Well, what exactly is a slugburger? And long as I’m asking, why do you call ‘em that?” I was still smiling, careful not to show any teeth; I think I heard once that the locals took that as being too aggressive. Or forward. Or something. Mr. Slugburger assumed an air of world-weariness that was remarkable in a forty-year-old who had probably never been a hundred miles from home in his life. He launched into his own version of The History of the Slugburger. “Well, what a slugburger is, is a cereal patty. There’s no meat in it, less’n you count the lard that kinda holds the cereal together in the deep fryer,” he said, gesturing over his shoulder to the two bubbling fry vats installed against the little trailer’s far wall. A stack of uncooked patties waited beside the fryers. They were shaped more or less like hamburgers, but there the resemblance ended. They were a sort of yellow color for which I have no previous point of reference, and rather lumpy. A pair of flies buzzed lazily in a holding pattern over the stack, as if slugburgers were uncharted territory for them, as well. The man continued, “And as for the name, that came from back in the Depression.” He leaned down into the window and rested his elbows on the formica counter inside. “Back then, meat was scarce if you weren’t a farmer. Somebody came up with a way to make a patty out of meal and lard, fry it up in a pan, and put it on a bun like a burger. Made a big hit at all the little county fairs and such, where you could buy one for a nickel, which some folks used to call a slug. So you see where the name come from.” He stood up, pulled a grimy towel from the waistband of his black trousers, and wiped his hands. “Yeah. I do see,” I replied, slipping in a quick sideways glance at the bag, which was by now pretty saturated with drippin’s from the two sandwiches and the order of fries I had bought. “They’re really good, once you get used to the taste. A lot of folks that grew up around here won’t eat a meat burger.” The man turned to drop the next batch of slugburgers into the fryer. He looked over his shoulder to dispense one last piece of wisdom: “And remember, long as you’re here, if you want a meat burger, you have to specify “meat hamburger,” and don’t just ask for a burger. You’ll get a slug ever’ time.” I thanked him for the tip, walked halfway across the fairgrounds, and dropped the bag into a trash bin beside the Tilt-A-Whirl. So far, my visit to Fayette, Mississippi was beginning to look like a real waste of time. I thought about finding my car and getting back across the state line. I could find someplace on the interstate where I wouldn’t have to specify whether or not I wanted my hamburger made of lard and oatmeal, and still make Nashville by midnight to boot. I looked across the open field adjacent to the fairgrounds that had been cordoned off for parking. It was that elusive hour before twilight when the sun is gone from view, but somehow manages to brighten everything with a diffuse glow that is far more pleasing than the harsh orange haze of sundown. The round hills in the distance were a patchwork of timber and hayfields and seemed to be lit from within. If it hadn’t been for the shrieking machinery behind me and two acres of cars and trucks that looked like cast-offs from a demolition derby in front of me, it would have been a damned fine moment, indeed.
Friday, May 28, 2010
Pitch
It's only because all's fair and all of us
Are in for a penny...nothing but a little pitch & turn
So what's the harm? It feels good to say it and brother,
In your own coin it makes everything
Worth it. So let's just throw some bones, eyes and dollars
All trained down on the chute. Because an old man
Told me one time, Eyes open and dome on a swivel,
That's the way. The situation, he said, is fluid.
The bread is on the water and the current bears it away.
Cast your handful of ones and sixes
Against the rail, and count your money where the wind
Isn't blowing. All's fair and all's the same again.
©2008 Timothy W Holland
Are in for a penny...nothing but a little pitch & turn
So what's the harm? It feels good to say it and brother,
In your own coin it makes everything
Worth it. So let's just throw some bones, eyes and dollars
All trained down on the chute. Because an old man
Told me one time, Eyes open and dome on a swivel,
That's the way. The situation, he said, is fluid.
The bread is on the water and the current bears it away.
Cast your handful of ones and sixes
Against the rail, and count your money where the wind
Isn't blowing. All's fair and all's the same again.
©2008 Timothy W Holland
Fifteen Seconds Between Things
Strangest days are the ones laid
Out like this: steps go somewhere and everybody's in a hurry
To take them. Me, I'm dragged down to a halt
With the current split around me: a boiling hydraulic
Of all the things people do and say.
I catch myself with my ear bent to the sussurus
Of some conversation that doesn't belong to me,
And it sounds like stolen silk ripped down from the line.
It must be better; they seem
So content. Nothing to do for the
Shudderstop lockstep I think I keep noticing.
They don't think they're doing it, but
They are. None of that matters when the big engine
Turns those gyros fast and clean
And serves up everything normal and sweet.
Which must be better. Must be right.
©2008 Timothy W Holland
Out like this: steps go somewhere and everybody's in a hurry
To take them. Me, I'm dragged down to a halt
With the current split around me: a boiling hydraulic
Of all the things people do and say.
I catch myself with my ear bent to the sussurus
Of some conversation that doesn't belong to me,
And it sounds like stolen silk ripped down from the line.
It must be better; they seem
So content. Nothing to do for the
Shudderstop lockstep I think I keep noticing.
They don't think they're doing it, but
They are. None of that matters when the big engine
Turns those gyros fast and clean
And serves up everything normal and sweet.
Which must be better. Must be right.
©2008 Timothy W Holland
Wrestle
The way he looked across I could tell that
Language, a common language, was going to be a barrier.
Broken-wing eyebrows tried to raise
And lower over the conversation, picked to bits
And cached for later. Wood and paper,
Steel and gold and death all woven into lace
And draped across the table like a souvenir caul
But still, a thing only half-said turns
Into a sermon every time. Every last time.
Preacherman raised his hands, raised his voice, raised
His expectations to the rafters and my friends, you all know
What happened next: they came back down through the beams
With a noose and a promise. The floor pitched and heaved;
Nothing for it now but to watch the cord unravel and find
Some fresh use for the matchburnt ends, woven back
In a hand-over-hand step. Someone reminded us all
To keep one eye on the ground and gather all we find.
©2008 Timothy W Holland
Language, a common language, was going to be a barrier.
Broken-wing eyebrows tried to raise
And lower over the conversation, picked to bits
And cached for later. Wood and paper,
Steel and gold and death all woven into lace
And draped across the table like a souvenir caul
But still, a thing only half-said turns
Into a sermon every time. Every last time.
Preacherman raised his hands, raised his voice, raised
His expectations to the rafters and my friends, you all know
What happened next: they came back down through the beams
With a noose and a promise. The floor pitched and heaved;
Nothing for it now but to watch the cord unravel and find
Some fresh use for the matchburnt ends, woven back
In a hand-over-hand step. Someone reminded us all
To keep one eye on the ground and gather all we find.
©2008 Timothy W Holland
Full of Wild Letters
The morning crashed in and
Made a new window, broke the seal on the vacuum
That was keeping all those dreams so crisp;
Now I have to think about them all.
Like this one: The old man with a pistol and a vendetta
Who chased me across three states. Something about
Something my family had done, before my time. But
That didn't make any difference. Sins of the father,
And all that. I woke up just as he found me
Where I had run to ground in the city
Where I grew up and just before I figured out
That I was going to have to kill him, or be killed by him.
That was just one. The past week has been full of them,
Full of wild letters. Secrets about the giant slipping engines
Grinding away under the earth, and something
I was supposed to do about them. There was a schematic
drawn on the lid of a box. With that done, I just want
To forget. I want to put my own pistols away
And stop drawing them down on old men.
I want to welcome Persephone back topside
When the four months are over.
©2008 Timothy W Holland
Made a new window, broke the seal on the vacuum
That was keeping all those dreams so crisp;
Now I have to think about them all.
Like this one: The old man with a pistol and a vendetta
Who chased me across three states. Something about
Something my family had done, before my time. But
That didn't make any difference. Sins of the father,
And all that. I woke up just as he found me
Where I had run to ground in the city
Where I grew up and just before I figured out
That I was going to have to kill him, or be killed by him.
That was just one. The past week has been full of them,
Full of wild letters. Secrets about the giant slipping engines
Grinding away under the earth, and something
I was supposed to do about them. There was a schematic
drawn on the lid of a box. With that done, I just want
To forget. I want to put my own pistols away
And stop drawing them down on old men.
I want to welcome Persephone back topside
When the four months are over.
©2008 Timothy W Holland
Blister
Here's the truth of it, boy, and you'd be damned smart
To write it down somewhere:
If you brush up against something
That's too hot for the likes of you ––
Run too wide-open for way too long
On roads you've never
Seen -- well, you're just going to get burned.
That drywhisper hiss, you heard it coming
Plenty of time to move, fool,
So why didn't you?
You stayed around for the blister.
All sweat-slick and full of memory,
There's nothing for it now but to wait.
©2008 Timothy W Holland
To write it down somewhere:
If you brush up against something
That's too hot for the likes of you ––
Run too wide-open for way too long
On roads you've never
Seen -- well, you're just going to get burned.
That drywhisper hiss, you heard it coming
Plenty of time to move, fool,
So why didn't you?
You stayed around for the blister.
All sweat-slick and full of memory,
There's nothing for it now but to wait.
©2008 Timothy W Holland
Drive / Three Parts
Drive / Three Parts
Run down that road, man
Red clay and gravel, washboard to scrub anything
You know how to do it
Just point the grill and shoot for the moon
You know you'll miss, so
Nobody gets hurt. Or gets out.
A little Rage in the box, a little fuel
Now, look man:
This is no long goodbye.
Wire guided and wound up tight,
Flying, this time.
_______________
Drive / The Second Part
In the long bellybottom of the road
Ninety is the new sixty
Until that place, you know the one, man
Where the water claims the road for days
Every spring and leaves deep fingerprints.
Sideways in the cage
And you chip your tooth on that half-open window.
Then up the hillside, gravel buried
Under some cousin's cousin's work
For the Highway Department.
A windshield speck becomes a porchlight
And you focus on it like a moth.
Like there was ever any question.
_______________
Drive / The Last Part
__________________________
©2007 Timothy W Holland
Run down that road, man
Red clay and gravel, washboard to scrub anything
You know how to do it
Just point the grill and shoot for the moon
You know you'll miss, so
Nobody gets hurt. Or gets out.
A little Rage in the box, a little fuel
Now, look man:
This is no long goodbye.
Wire guided and wound up tight,
Flying, this time.
_______________
Drive / The Second Part
In the long bellybottom of the road
Ninety is the new sixty
Until that place, you know the one, man
Where the water claims the road for days
Every spring and leaves deep fingerprints.
Sideways in the cage
And you chip your tooth on that half-open window.
Then up the hillside, gravel buried
Under some cousin's cousin's work
For the Highway Department.
A windshield speck becomes a porchlight
And you focus on it like a moth.
Like there was ever any question.
_______________
Drive / The Last Part
The light keeps pushing backward
Dragging the porch and the little house with it.
Hard up against that hill, all vines
And poplars and cottonwoods
Green as money in the daylight, washed grey
Here in this light, with the certainty of a mirage.
Dusk or dawn, you can't remember
And it doesn't matter anyway...your grill is pointed at that light,
Flickering and blown through with candlefly wings
And the smoke of ten thousand cigarettes.
Across the millstone-step and painted porchboard
A screen door tilts out against a spring, and slams back
Into that dark room. She scratches a match to life
And touches that burn against a fresh stick and waits.
Dragging the porch and the little house with it.
Hard up against that hill, all vines
And poplars and cottonwoods
Green as money in the daylight, washed grey
Here in this light, with the certainty of a mirage.
Dusk or dawn, you can't remember
And it doesn't matter anyway...your grill is pointed at that light,
Flickering and blown through with candlefly wings
And the smoke of ten thousand cigarettes.
Across the millstone-step and painted porchboard
A screen door tilts out against a spring, and slams back
Into that dark room. She scratches a match to life
And touches that burn against a fresh stick and waits.
__________________________
©2007 Timothy W Holland
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
A Short Rant. Indulge Me.
(note: this is all out of season, copied from an earlier blog of mine around Christmastime a year ago. I just re-read it and liked what I said.)
I heard a snippet of the 'Focus On The Family' radio broadcast this afternoon. Now, I have some respect for Dr. James Dobson. I think he's a good man and a solid authority on parenting. That said, I had to cringe a bit when I heard him recounting an experience he had recently at a department store. Best I could figure, a cashier had the temerity to wish him 'Happy Holidays' when he completed his purchases and I suppose it got his righteous indignation going. According to him, he replied with something like, 'Isn't there a better way to say that? How about Merry Christmas?' Okay. I'm not unaware of the frustrations my fellow believers feel as we watch the apparent marginalization of Christianity in society. It's easy to be aggravated at the climate of political correctness that makes it unfashionable to speak frankly about traditional viewpoints. That's all easily understandable. But let's look at Dr. Dobson's approach...was even a gentle upbraiding of a Lord & Taylor's cashier appropriate? Perhaps the young lady was Jewish. Perhaps she was agnostic, atheist, wiccan, or simply abiding by company policy. What Dr. Dobson seems to be missing is that the world doesn't owe him a 'Merry Christmas'. I'd remind him of our Lord's words in John 15:18...'If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first.' This is indicative of the big, overarching problem in the mindset of many believers in this age and in this country. There's no question that a great many of our neighbors who are not Christians look at us as political bullies and crass, insensitive busybodies who just want to be all up in everyone's business. And I tend to agree with them. Look...I doubt anyone is going to ever going to be brought closer to the saving grace and love of Christ by our ham-fisted attempts to hammer this country into the shape that's pleasing to our own morality. It seems to me that the cause of God's kingdom would be better served if we would all tread more lightly and tend to our own spiritual gardens.
Here's what that looks like to me:
> if you don't believe in abortion, don't get one.
> if you don't believe in same-sex marriage, don't marry anyone the same sex as you.
> if you're troubled by Christ being marginalized around Christmastime, then keep Him in the center of your life....see how that might work? Live the life. Walk the walk. Teach your children and love your neighbors and spend less time wringing your hands that unbelievers don't share your moral compass. Remember, brothers and sisters, what James wrote at the end of chapter one of his wonderful letter: 'Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.'
Here's what that looks like to me:
> if you don't believe in abortion, don't get one.
> if you don't believe in same-sex marriage, don't marry anyone the same sex as you.
> if you're troubled by Christ being marginalized around Christmastime, then keep Him in the center of your life....see how that might work? Live the life. Walk the walk. Teach your children and love your neighbors and spend less time wringing your hands that unbelievers don't share your moral compass. Remember, brothers and sisters, what James wrote at the end of chapter one of his wonderful letter: 'Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.'
Dreams, Lately
Flummoxed
Hands down, the strangest dream I've had in recent memory happened about a week ago...and like most of my dreams it didn't have much shelf life and my rendering of it here will be a faint shadow of its actual splendor.
What I remember is this: I was in some rural mountain region which I'd judge to be to our west by the landscape...some tall timber, but sparse ground cover over rocky, sandy soil. One of those high prairies near where the vegetation changes as the elevation tilts up the sides of a mountain range. I was visiting a family or group of people who had built a huge, rambling cabin-shelter high on a plateau. The structure seemed to stretch along a ridge in a series of interconnected rooms all in a row and they all had some kind of 'lookout' aspect to them: a platform that either gave out onto the roof and equipped with a mounted scope or binoculars, or some kind of similar device positioned at a window. At the center of most of the rooms was a sitting or reclining construct made of rough materials like rawhide strips and ripcut wood slats, but all ingeniously crafted and most suspended from the rafters of the room by ropes or from the floor by posts. I got the impression that whoever owned the place was enlisting my help to witness some border dispute or other...I spent a lot of time looking through the scopes and binoculars in all directions...and also to talk about some dangerous wildlife. Wolves or bears, I'd guess. Suddenly everything fell away except for the sense that I'd been involved in some 'encounter' with a woman related to the household...we were alone in the rambling building, taking advantage of one (or more) of the clever suspended pieces of primitive furniture. Just as suddenly, that woman and I were outdoors at the edge of a hard winter wilderness...I felt (analyzing the dream later) that we had been banished from the house on account of our tryst in the building and put out in the wild to find our way to civilization. We were intent on doing something to make sure we weren't caught out by a coming storm that was going to cause landslides and fill the mountainsides with trees and debris. In a short span of time, we had avoided both some wolves and some strange mountainfolk who were trying to rob us. Soon we were hurtling down a canyon that had been turned into a churning rapid by the cold sleet and rain. We had managed to fashion or find some kind of craft like a small boat...but I woke up before we had reached safety. We were dodging huge trees and bolders when I snapped upright, wondering where the hell I was. Who was she? Why was her family so angry about her encounter with me, or vice versa?
What I remember is this: I was in some rural mountain region which I'd judge to be to our west by the landscape...some tall timber, but sparse ground cover over rocky, sandy soil. One of those high prairies near where the vegetation changes as the elevation tilts up the sides of a mountain range. I was visiting a family or group of people who had built a huge, rambling cabin-shelter high on a plateau. The structure seemed to stretch along a ridge in a series of interconnected rooms all in a row and they all had some kind of 'lookout' aspect to them: a platform that either gave out onto the roof and equipped with a mounted scope or binoculars, or some kind of similar device positioned at a window. At the center of most of the rooms was a sitting or reclining construct made of rough materials like rawhide strips and ripcut wood slats, but all ingeniously crafted and most suspended from the rafters of the room by ropes or from the floor by posts. I got the impression that whoever owned the place was enlisting my help to witness some border dispute or other...I spent a lot of time looking through the scopes and binoculars in all directions...and also to talk about some dangerous wildlife. Wolves or bears, I'd guess. Suddenly everything fell away except for the sense that I'd been involved in some 'encounter' with a woman related to the household...we were alone in the rambling building, taking advantage of one (or more) of the clever suspended pieces of primitive furniture. Just as suddenly, that woman and I were outdoors at the edge of a hard winter wilderness...I felt (analyzing the dream later) that we had been banished from the house on account of our tryst in the building and put out in the wild to find our way to civilization. We were intent on doing something to make sure we weren't caught out by a coming storm that was going to cause landslides and fill the mountainsides with trees and debris. In a short span of time, we had avoided both some wolves and some strange mountainfolk who were trying to rob us. Soon we were hurtling down a canyon that had been turned into a churning rapid by the cold sleet and rain. We had managed to fashion or find some kind of craft like a small boat...but I woke up before we had reached safety. We were dodging huge trees and bolders when I snapped upright, wondering where the hell I was. Who was she? Why was her family so angry about her encounter with me, or vice versa?
Raptor
I think it was the day before yesterday that I pointed my vehicle south down a rural Kentucky highway. I rounded a curve with a newly-mowed hayfield on my right and a sloping, hilly vista on my left that drops away toward the Pallisades, those steep, striking cliffs with the lazy Kentucky River at their feet. A red-tailed hawk was beating the air with his wings, looking for purchase on an updraft that would help him clear the highway. He flew directly in front of me for a short distance and I saw that he held a snake in his right talon. Suddenly he made a move to go more vertical; the stall brought him close enough to my car that he got rattled and dropped his feast. The snake spun down toward me, describing first a 'C' and then a question mark in the air before I passed underneath. It thumped onto my roof, slid backward, and dropped onto the yellow centerline behind me. I glanced at it in my side mirror. I reckon crows deserve to eat, same as hawks.
Nature Abhors A Vacuum
Pondered-Out
In the interest of truth in labeling, I should mention that I'm only vaguely aware of what that 'subject' heading has to do with what's on my mind today...but if I had to try to connect the dots, I'd say that I've just been thinking a lot about how when something or someone leaves my life, there's always something to mark the displacement. A lot of things and some people disappear with only the smallest effect: there's a momentary swirling of the waters, perhaps a small eddy in the wake, and the space is filled with either forgetfulness or the awareness of something or someone new. Often, though, it's not so simple. When a person, place, or thing is rooted deeply inside me and then is gone, there's an entire suite of cataclysms that gets set into motion. Whether the vacancy is slow and measured, a careful drawing-out intended to cause the least disturbance, or it happens suddenly with the whipcrack-snap of a heart or two breaking, everything in my life gets rearranged. There's some unavoidable geometry at work that ties the magnitude of the shuffle to my love of the Cherished Thing Lost. Sidebar: I read this little snippet near the end of a short story by Poppy Z. Brite, the strange and beautiful New Orleans writer of gothic fiction whose shoelaces Ann Rice is not fit to tie: 'You hold on to what you have; you do not give it up easily, even when you know it is poisoning you.' I'm looking around at the aftermath of some self-induced upheaval. I don't think I've ever cast out any of my own demons, but I do think every now and again I've opened my eyes certain mornings with a terrible clarity and known that whatever spun-sugar shrine I'd constructed around someone or something had melted away. Hateful and blessed, those certain mornings move me ahead and through my life. I don't like them but without them I'd still be in love with the first girl I ever cried over, back in the third grade. (Her name was Kathy Leaf...and Kathy, wherever you are, I hope you're well and happy, and I'll always remember.) That phrase in my subject line is an axiom of this physical world and I'm convinced that for most of us, our hearts are bound by it as well. Emptiness isn't a tenable state for us...even though sometimes, it sounds like it would be a gift. Instead, we're tied to the laws of the vacuum; when something gets removed, something else rushes in to fill the void. Tears and alcohol; blood and water; pain and mistakes and hard lessons learned.
Desert Island, Top Ten, All-Time Most Memorable...
Decisive
-- Rob Gordon (John Cusack) in "High Fidelity"
Someone recently asked me to list my 'Desert Island' songs...I interpret that as the songs that I couldn't live the rest of my life without hearing again. Another spin on it is to think of ten songs that, were I actually Stranded On A Desert Island (I have no boat, but somehow, I have a solar-powered CD player?) I could listen to over and over, ad infinitum. Perhaps there would be something in the synergy of those ten songs that would either stave off insanity, or somehow mercifully hasten it. So, with that in mind, let's get it started. (I'm putting these in a playlist-order, but please don't infer that I like #1 more than #10.)
1) 100 Games Of Solitaire, by Concrete Blonde
This song is here and in position number one because I've been in love with it since the very first time I heard it. An awesome display of crunch & slide guitar, and while Johnette Napolitano's incredible voice is mostly held in breathless check here, her diamond-hard attitude is right up front. Instant classic. Plus, no thinking person could resist the lines: 'I got a hundred miles of desert / Got a head of fresh air / And I know a hundred games of solitaire.'
2) Ball And Chain, by Social Distortion
I knew I'd want to have these guys around; picking a song of theirs was tough because there's so much to choose from. This one is a great example of their rockabilly propers but it also has the hopeless lyrical misery that we've all come to expect from Social Dee.
3) Maybe Angels, by Sheryl Crow
I've always loved this song...kind of like having all the best episodes of the X-Files distilled into one slinky little rock song. And it's just enough fun to keep me from stabbing myself with a sharpened palm frond after listening to Social Distortion.
4) Big Shot, by White Animals
The sad thing here is that only a handful of us in this world have ever gotten to hear this song. Kevin, Steve, Rich, and Ray...the White Animals, from Nashville, Tennessee...served up some of the best live rock and roll I've ever had the pleasure to witness.
5) Angel, Won't You Call Me, by The Decemberists
I had to have this band, and again, the dilema was choosing one song. I went with the first song that I ever heard by them and I think it's still my favorite. 'I've been so unbridled...'
6) When The Day Is Short, by Martha Wainwright
This is another song that I fell in love with instantly and have not been able to get enough of, hundreds of listenings later. I will go home with whoever is sure...are you sure?
7) Lakes Of Ponchartrain, by The Be Good Tanyas
I'll forever be thankful that I was introduced to this song and these voices. It's a stellar bit of songwriting and a powerful performance. It still raises the hair on the back of my neck to listen to it.
8) Back In The High Life Again, by Warren Zevon
I wouldn't want to never hear Warren's gravel-and-gin-soaked warble again. This acoustic rendering from 'Life'll Kill Ya' is really special.
9) Till I See You Again, by Kevin Welch AND Wild And Blue, by John Anderson
I'm cheating here but both of these great country songs combined only weigh in at about five minutes, less than the bulk of 'Ball And Chain' alone, so I'm going to cram them into one track. 'Till I See You' somehow manages to be heavy and breezy at the same time and has one of my all-time favorite guitar leads by the great Mike Henderson. Kids, don't try this at home. And 'Wild And Blue' is about as perfect an application as I can imagine of two of the greatest voices ever: John Anderson and Emmylou Harris.
10) I Lost It, by Lucinda Williams
Lucinda Williams' songwriting is just too good to pass up. I love this testimony to loss, regret, and resignation.
Well...that was a draining experience. I realize there are a lot of songs missing from this list that probably have a deeper impact on me than some of these, but that don't belong here simply because they are too painful, or too personal, or too perfect. Six months from now, my list would very likely be different. My life is what they call in espionage techno-thrillerspeak 'a fluid situation'. Besides, there are basketfuls of variables to be considered with this whole 'Desert Island' scenario. Am I stranded alone, or with someone? Is the someone likely to get testy, having to listen to the soundtrack of my life over and over? Will he (or she) break my solar-powered CD player while I sleep? I'm going to have a margarita and think about it.
A True Ghost Story
Whistling Past.
I know, because it happened to me. Let me preface this recollection by pointing out that I'm a bit of a skeptic when it comes to 'phenomena.' While I'm firmly convinced that there's a spiritual realm that touches the physical one and that we're all created to be aware of that, I'm not in a hurry to subscribe to the notion that there are unquiet shades of the departed lurking around ready to freak the holy hell out of us. That said, I got the holy hell freaked right on out of me one autumn afternoon in 1992. I was living in an extremely rural part of western Tennessee, near the small community of Olive Hill, just a few miles inside the Hardin County line. The road that fronted my farm descended off the ridgetop from Highway 64; patchy blacktop lasted about a mile into 'the holler' and then gave way to about sixteen miles of dirt and gravel cutting through rich bottomland between Indian Creek and Dry Creek. About a quarter mile from my driveway was an old logging road that had been improved by some unknown landowner far at the top of the ridge behind my property and for a short distance, the woods at the very back of my thirty-nine acres ran along bordered by that road. I was in the habit of riding my mountain bike up that slope occasionally and then turning at the top for a very fast and jittery slalom down the clay-and-chert surface, ending with a sharp right turn adjacent to a little Mennonite church that sat just off the main road. One particular day, around this time of the season and thirteen years ago, I was just beginning to toil up that road with the little church on my right and an old fencerow with a monstrous stand of blackberry bramble overgrowing it on my left. Very suddenly, I heard (or thought I did) a single word spoken: it was a name, and I thought I understood it to be 'McEachern'...I knew a family by that name back in south Georgia...but there was no one anywhere around, and in any case, the voice I heard was soft and conversational, not shouted as if I had overheard it from a distance. I can't explain exactly why but I felt compelled to stop my bike and pull off the side of the logging road for a moment. I was very uneasy and looked off into the woods, wondering if there was someone just off the road in the thick stands of maple, oak, and hickory that grew heavy up in those hollers. I didn't see anyone. I did see something I'd never noticed before: about twenty feet into the woods, an old and unkempt collection of headstones, partially enclosed by a rusty knee-high ironwork fence. As it happens, I'm fascinated by old cemetaries and I didn't waste any time hopping over the little barrier and wandering slowly among the old, worn markers, my experience of just a moment before dismissed as nothing and fading away. Most of the headstones were too worn for any words to be made out, with just a few mossy, curved indentions to suggest that once upon a time, someone marked someone's passing with these little monuments. There were two headstones near the corner of the little plot farthest from the logging road that seemed to be in better shape than the rest...even in the shade I could see from several paces away that there was legible writing on both. When I knelt beside the first one, I felt as if the ground tilted sharply underneath me and my hands tingled and grew damp. There, in a smart and stylish serif lettering was a single word...a name. McLern. When I repeated it out loud, I knew straightaway that was the name I had heard in my head at the bottom of the hill. I had never encountered that name before and haven't encountered it since, except in my memory of that day. Two McLern brothers lie under those two headstones in that little cemetary in Hardin County, Tennessee. I don't remember the name of the brother farthest from the road, but James was the man's name whose grave I knelt beside first. If memory serves he was born in 1814 and died in 1878. His two daughters penned this poem and had it engraved on his marker: 'Rest, dear father, our steps wake thee not Here by thy grave, a consecrated spot Sweet be thy slumber in the narrow cell And soft thy pillow; father, farewell.' Did something of James' spirit remain, strong and willful enough to speak his name into my consciousness that day? I only know that having heard his name, I'll never forget him.
Real-Life Geology
Watchful.
When I drive into Lexington, I travel a picturesque stretch of Highway 68 that winds through steep limestone cliffs surrounding the Kentucky River known as The Pallisades. There are some narrow passes on that road that can make uninitiated drivers hold their breath; wedged hard between jutting overhangs of rock rising a hundred feet above the road and a tiny guardrail that my grandmother could have stepped over on a bad rheumatism day, even us veterans of the trip count ourselves lucky when we don't encounter a semi or a big old John Deere tractor pulling a swaying wooden trailer stacked high with hay bales.
Coming back southwest this afternoon on 68, about a quarter mile before the bridge separating Jessamine from Mercer county, I noticed a potentially disturbing feature on the rock wall about fifteen feet above the roadway. A boulder roughly the size of a Chevy Tahoe seems to be intent on loosing itself from the rest of the mountain sometime this decade. I hadn't noticed that chunk of rock before; that in itself isn't surprising, as usually I'm intent on jamming my thumb repeatedly at the 'Scan' button on my radio in search of something I can listen to with a clear conscience. Today, though, for whatever reason, the geometry of how that slab of the mountain is clinging to the cliff face just didn't look right to me. There are streamers of honeysuckle and Virginia Creeper cascading down the face of the boulder, and it occured to me that perhaps the roots of all those vines are busy probing the fissures behind the rock, looking for a piece of real estate to call their own. Perhaps all those vegetative interlopers are hastening the day when that block of limestone slips free of the thousands-of-years-long grip of inertia and goes ambulatory - so very ready to give us latter-day visitors to the mountain a lesson in gravity that we won't soon forget.
Coming back southwest this afternoon on 68, about a quarter mile before the bridge separating Jessamine from Mercer county, I noticed a potentially disturbing feature on the rock wall about fifteen feet above the roadway. A boulder roughly the size of a Chevy Tahoe seems to be intent on loosing itself from the rest of the mountain sometime this decade. I hadn't noticed that chunk of rock before; that in itself isn't surprising, as usually I'm intent on jamming my thumb repeatedly at the 'Scan' button on my radio in search of something I can listen to with a clear conscience. Today, though, for whatever reason, the geometry of how that slab of the mountain is clinging to the cliff face just didn't look right to me. There are streamers of honeysuckle and Virginia Creeper cascading down the face of the boulder, and it occured to me that perhaps the roots of all those vines are busy probing the fissures behind the rock, looking for a piece of real estate to call their own. Perhaps all those vegetative interlopers are hastening the day when that block of limestone slips free of the thousands-of-years-long grip of inertia and goes ambulatory - so very ready to give us latter-day visitors to the mountain a lesson in gravity that we won't soon forget.
What Do You See With Your Eyes Closed?
There's A Window In The Sky
It's Saturday, and I stood on the front stoop for a few minutes. It's a good idea to keep an eye on what's out there, I say. Shelby took the opportunity to chew on some grass and flinch every time a car passed by or a lawn mower sputtered to life around the corner. She bolted back inside. 'Out there' is not for her.I looked up in the general direction of the sun...did you ever do that? And I squeezed my eyes shut, tight, and watched for what would appear. It was a stone-arch window opening, minus the tower wall that it should have been mortared into. It just hung there against that no-color bluegrey that I see inside my eyelids, with the monotone kaleidescope of fishscale glitter all around it.
I thought maybe someone was in the window, standing back in the cool shadow away from the opening, but regarding me - or all of us - with a sort of predatory detachment. Not hungry right now. Maybe later, whoever-it-was seemed to say.
The sun is still shining out there. I closed the door; that helped a little. All morning long I've had the same song cutting across my consciousness like a knife. It hurts, but at the same time, it's good to know that sometime in history back, as they liked to say in the Mad Max films, somebody was feeling like I do and sat with a guitar across his knee and didn't spare the rod until a song was done.
If you haven't heard of the Godfathers, look them up.
"Boys and girls don't understand - the Devil makes work for idle hands.
Birth. School. Work. Death."
Sheer Genius
Sometimes, you just have to let art find you. This morning, I got run down by a brilliant and colorful and sometimes disturbing piece of poetry, and I swear to you people, I never saw it coming.
The small jewel that follows was tucked down at the bottom of an email from my good friend Annievavantioch8@huffinternet.com, letting me know that "We have a HUGE selection of top quality REPLIKA watches on sale NOW!" and that I should hurry, because "His & Her Watches - 26% OFF! While Supplies! Last!"
(if you're interested, you can check out these great deals by visiting www.gtbhbxhw.steelsenzation.com -- I haven't gone there yet; let me know how you like it.)
And now, the accidental verse. Let it add its life to your day.
____________________________________
as koenigsberg in kahn it corpus as coherent
it cadmium not campion some soda or grip that cavil but commend
a thistledown and quaternary not jacobi not bechtel
it's scurry what buy when blind as frey
it's cocklebur when powerful it eclogue when schelling
but osiris it snuffer
some wavelength an aspartic
some demure when disembowel
or eardrum when slid in foamy as pink but cleanup
____________________________________
The small jewel that follows was tucked down at the bottom of an email from my good friend Annievavantioch8@huffinternet.com, letting me know that "We have a HUGE selection of top quality REPLIKA watches on sale NOW!" and that I should hurry, because "His & Her Watches - 26% OFF! While Supplies! Last!"
(if you're interested, you can check out these great deals by visiting www.gtbhbxhw.steelsenzation.com -- I haven't gone there yet; let me know how you like it.)
And now, the accidental verse. Let it add its life to your day.
____________________________________
as koenigsberg in kahn it corpus as coherent
it cadmium not campion some soda or grip that cavil but commend
a thistledown and quaternary not jacobi not bechtel
it's scurry what buy when blind as frey
it's cocklebur when powerful it eclogue when schelling
but osiris it snuffer
some wavelength an aspartic
some demure when disembowel
or eardrum when slid in foamy as pink but cleanup
____________________________________
Blistered Again
Just Because
He ran the bottle, unopened, all the way to the back of the cabinet. It rang a couple of dull tones that didn't inspire him at all as it passed too close to his half-empties, and he closed the door. Another virtuous near-miss that would stick with him like a deep splinter for the rest of the night, through all the unpleasant business at hand and beyond.
With a grim sort of purpose usually left to the damned or the unbalanced, he raked his car keys off the countertop and turned toward the garage to fetch his shovel.
The End.
He ran the bottle, unopened, all the way to the back of the cabinet. It rang a couple of dull tones that didn't inspire him at all as it passed too close to his half-empties, and he closed the door. Another virtuous near-miss that would stick with him like a deep splinter for the rest of the night, through all the unpleasant business at hand and beyond.
With a grim sort of purpose usually left to the damned or the unbalanced, he raked his car keys off the countertop and turned toward the garage to fetch his shovel.
The End.
Tuesday, April 18, 2006
| _______________________ "The war is being waged with unbelievable cruelty and in a fashion so out of character with American instincts of decency that it is seriously undermining them." - William Sloane Coffin _______________________ On Wednesday, April 12, 2006, those of us who are believers in Christ lost a brother with a profound and important voice about how our faith touches and influences this world. William Sloane Coffin, political activist, former chaplain of Yale University, and Presbyterian minister, died at his home in Vermont of congestive heart failure. Friday, the NPR program 'Fresh Air' with Terry Gross aired an interview with Rev. Coffin originally broadcast in 1985, and I listened, rapt and intrigued, as I drove home. Of course, Rev. Coffin's views are more liberal than mine (which is saying something), but he made one observation in particular that has gripped me and left me committed to reading some of his books. He was talking about the singular tendency of Christians, when faced with a life tragedy, to intone, 'Well...it must have been God's will.' He spoke of families who have lost sons and daughters in war or to disease or in accidents...and people, he knew what he was talking about: his own son died in a senseless car wreck in 1983. He made the point that it does no service to God or to the memory of the loved one lost to ascribe God's will to their passing. I loved what he said next...that instead of God somehow being complicit in our sorrows, that truly, God who loves us so much is the first to have His heart broken by our loss. Now, I know that this flies in the face of more traditional Christian thought, that God numbers the hairs on our heads and notes every sparrow that falls from the sky...but I'd submit for consideration that the utter and complete omniscience and omnipresence of our God is something that we are unable to understand. The philosophical challenge presented by the merest contemplation of God's will is daunting and and shouldn't be undertaken lightly. I always return to God's ultimate proclamation on this subject in Isaiah 55:8. ' "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declares the LORD. ' Further, I'd suggest that we are taught to endure and manage our lives with grace and dependence on the Lord. Peter touched on this in his first letter, chapter 4:12: 'Dear friends, do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering, as though something strange were happening to you.' He understood that this life here below is full of opportunities for sorrow as well as joy. I'd urge everyone who wants to experience the spirit and courage of a man committed to the conscience of Christ to learn more about the life of William Sloane Coffin, who rests now in God's peace. |
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