The Day The Pines Fell
I imagined myself back home. With my sisters. With my brothers. With no home to go to.
I made an offer a door down from Auntie. And waited.
It’s not exactly the hill. With a well. With a hedge. With the bones of our buried.
It might could still work. I whisper. So’s not to jinx it.
I slept and was wakened. The sound of a big engine. Dad’s boom truck. I looked for Georgie, but couldn’t see him through the dark. The sounds were farther than the back yard, and south, toward Stark’s, toward the backhill. I understood. Red Ross on the road grader. I intuitively knew that Roy was with him. Without seeing them. Without seeing anything through the pitch black night of the Lucerne sky.
My eyes opened to the sound of a big engine. Not a boom truck. Not a maintainer. Not under a black Lucerne sky.
The timber men were here. The Georgia pines began to fall.
The call came.
It’s ours.
Two doors down from Auntie.
I slept that night on a bed full of feathers. I awoke on the hill. In the chill of December: Mom warming soup on the oil burner, Dad dragging in the Christmas tree, and Georgie not yet walking. Mary carried me to Grandma’s house in a frozen moment. I stood with Gram between her two mirrors. I saw her go on forever.
My eyes opened to a light unexpected in this mis-shapen Missouri, through a window forever shadowed by a thick wall of Georgia pine. I stepped outside. I walked the red ground toward the empty land where the stand had been.
I looked up and saw the bright northern sky for the first time since I’ve been here.
October 11, 2010 at 14:21
You always take me there with your words…thank you cousin!
October 11, 2010 at 15:28
I don’t know what to say! You are absolutely brilliant! What a wonderful, fluid voice you speak with. When are you coming home dear cousin?
October 11, 2010 at 22:08
Where is home? Are dreams and memories another reality?
These can be such hard questions.
My misshapen Missouri is shadowed by tan Atlantic sand, the Smithsonian Institution, and family I have never quite been able to reach, even when we’re in the same room.
October 11, 2010 at 23:42
you’ve left me typeless
later:
you’ve written some of the finest things I’ve ever read (and you know I’ve read the Enquirer!) 😉 i’m joking (but only in parentheses)
what, I can’t hear you, I’m writing a letter 🙂 AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA love and thank you
November 7, 2010 at 09:56
Beautiful
So glad we are finally getting you home again
You have to talk to me— Dani and I have some BIGGGGG plans and they could include you if you are interested
November 12, 2010 at 15:06
I’m emailing you right now. 🙂