cj
Sez: Next week, my grandson leaves home to
begin his first year of law school, and I am awash with melancholy. The event
reminds me how fast time really does fly when you’re having a good time. I
moved to Alabama to be near my grandkids and don't you know, they grew up.
(sigh) Too soon, I say. Not soon enough, says he. I miss the hugs, giggles and
piano concerts already.
Doesn't matter where the future takes him. To me, he will always
be the dark-eyed cutie ready to save the world.
Feeling maudlin about the changes in our lives, I found myself thinking of my childhood in Texas and how far away that
special time seems. What follows is a poem I wrote years ago that was
ePublished by The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature in 2012.
DAYDREAMS
In
quiet times when past and present flow into one
Moment
and melancholy dulls the senses and time ceases,
Memories
steal me away to a place of tiny towns and meager farms
Worked
by a few determined immigrants coaxing bounty from a dowry of hope,
A
bundle of dreams wrapped in desert tan, banded by ribbons of
White
caliche roads and faded asphalt highways,
Dotted
with corn stalks,
Grain
shocks
And
monoliths to crude fortunes
That
spill upon the land in clear pools
Or
spout in unctuous streams.
I
roam prairies where The West begins;
Where
dust devils haunt wide-open spaces;
Where
shimmering heat mirages join in gay dance,
Dodging
prickly cactus and gnarly mesquite.
I
wander pastures skirting clods of Angus,
Shielding
my eyes from the livid sun
Punctuating
a sky swept by mares’ tails
And
little funnel clouds that spin around
The
heavens but never touch down
Like
the big ones do.
Awash
in twilight stands a child,
Barefoot
in the hard-scrabble dirt
At
the edge of a cotton field,
Wearing
a sun-faded dress
Handstitched
from a cotton feedsack.
An
ethereal landscape on a sepia canvas;
Where
dusk brushes the sunset in smears
Of
gold and purple and pink and mauve;
Where
color drains into the horizon
With
the sinking sun, applauded
By
the throaty rumble of thunder
Chasing
lightning through distant clouds
That
only sometimes rain
But
send breezes to winnow the dust
From
the cool night air,
Where
I shall sleep . . .
Under
a canopy of stars.
Grandson
will kill me when he sees that picture. That’s all for now. You-all guys keep
on keeping on, and I’ll try to do the same. Comments? Questions? Drop me a
line.
cj
