memories echo

memories echo,
through the halls of time
gentle whispers
and roaring cries.

the scent of sorrow
hangs in the air
shadows long,
this grief unfair.

bellow’s blast
ignites the flame
final call,
I say his name.

long sleep begun,
too soon say I
with little chance
to say goodbye.

oracles wise
could not foresee
the grief or ache
now filling me.

warm remembrance,
and friendship true,
some comforts found
some things renewed.

relentless time,
is ever sure,
legacies fade,
will mine endure?

furtive end,
I know not when,
but how to live,
until the end?

will I awake,
from slumber deep?
only discover
no souls should weep.

completed work,
all’s meant to be,
can his loss,
enlighten me?

step in the breach
to right some wrong
scribe words of truth,
of legends’ song?

stepping swift
or in the still,
not look away,
my intentions’ will.

arise renewed,
to love another,
make every man,
my journey’s brother.

enduring grace,
through petty trials,
abound in joy,
in sorrows smile.

lessons learned,
to tread my path,
instruct some novice,
redeem from the wrath?

love completely,
and give all my heart,
once more inspired,
make my new start.

hands and back,
they curse and groan,
a chorus singing,
must I atone?

a man or boy?
the ever-child
enduring storms,
and days so mild.

on this road,
sometimes unsure,
the refining fires,
some dross, some pure.

mountains summit,
or sometimes to fail
joy or sorrows,
I’ll walk this trail.

this house

this house,
in triumph and sorrow,
it sings,
harmonies of psalm and lament

it cries
it whispers
and snaps

this house,
its joists and joints,
bear untold burdens
toiling against time
against the unrelenting wind
against the torrent

in long shadows of approaching night,
robbed of robbed of the sun’s caress,
of its healing heat,
no longer soothed,
this house yawns

in the frigid dawn
it snaps
it shudders
rousing itself from restless slumber,
this house stretches

it creaks,
it leans,
this house murmurs,
suppressing secrets longing to escape
from tiny fissures in throughout its
echoing halls
and vaulted ceilings

there, below,
in its cellar-soul,
where mortar
and stone wage their interminable wars
against dampness and rot,
where it hides sorrows
and dreams forgotten,
this house shouts,
it scoffs,

above,
there,
under the blankets of dust,
where the light peers,
like some unblinking eye,
where motes dance,
there,
in the attic,
where treasures hide,
where reality and fantasy collide,
where the heat
and cold stand watch,
this house,
this house shudders

this house,
it stands
it endures

this house,

these bones,

this body.

I Remember how she Whistled

I remember how she whistled

And how she baked a pie,

Never used the cup,

Just measured by the eye;

 

And how she took me fishing,

Digging worms for the can,

I remember how she loved me

And her chicken in the pan;

 

I remember how she smelled,

Or think sometimes I do,

Lavender and lilac,

Like flowers blooming new;

 

And all the shirts she sewed me

Hand-stitched roses on the back,

I remember that she loved me

And that she gave me snacks;

 

I remember how he spoke,

And how he loved his boys,

Always had a story,

That his tools were my toys;

 

I remember how he held me

When upon the rocks I fell,

That he read his Bible

And the tales he’d tell;

 

I remember that his hair

Was fine and rather red.

I wish I could remember

The things I’m sure he said;

 

I remember that he loved her,

That Chester was his name,

And that he had a mule,

Dad says he couldn’t tame;

 

I remember how she laughed

And loved to tell a joke

Never met a stranger,

The drawl with which she spoke;

 

I remember the Christmas tree

A monstrous silver thing

And that gladly she gave me,

Grand-daddy’s wedding ring;

 

Always met me at the door

Whenever I came by,

Always did my laundry,

And the noise when it dried;

 

I remember how she woke

And rose within the dark,

How she always seemed

To have a special spark.

 

I remember his kind of swagger

And how he donned a hat,

I remember that he told me

Where the whiskey bottle sat;

 

He loved to give a gift,

To all the ones he loved,

And I kind of think he bought me

My first baseball glove.

 

I remember how he parted

A crowd of angry men,

Sometimes I really wish,

I could see him once again;

 

I remember how he drove

With all the windows down,

The air conditioner blowing

As we rode around.

 

I remember all these things

Of my parents-grand

Through the hour-glass

These bits of passing sand.

 

They labored in the field

And in the blackest mines,

Cared for all their children

Endured the toughest times;

 

I’m certain there were moments

When they lost their way,

But I’m grateful for them all

Who lead me here today.

Pink Cadillac

Let there be laughter, when the day comes.  And food.  Lots of delicious food. The kind that’s bad for you.  Fried chicken. French fries. Gravy. Some biscuits with butter, too. And ice cream.  There has to be ice cream.  Moose Tracks, please.

Of course, music is a must.  The classic stuff.  Kansas, Journey, and The Eagles.  Maybe even some Springsteen.  Pink Cadillac.  I love that song.  Crushed velvet seats.  Ridin’ in the back.  Crusin’ down the street.

If there’s rain, don’t worry about it.  We’ll dance in the rain. If it’s cold, we’ll wear our favorite wool sweaters.  If it’s the wet-southern-sticky kind of hot, then cotton.  Definitely, cotton. It won’t be formal.  Who wants to go to a formal party?  No.  This will be a strictly casual affair—happy thing.

Sure, I hope you’ll miss me.  Saying good-bye is difficult when you’re the one being left behind. If there’s pain, let it come.  Don’t fight it.  Just sit with it. But not too long.  Because, there’s way too much life yet to live. I mean, I know there are times when life is difficult and there were times when I disappointed you, times when I hurt you. But I hope those careless, impatient, weary times, (sometimes I was just hungry) you can forgive.  I hope you can bask in the memories of our joys, our laughter, our shared victories and maybe even our struggles.

I honestly don’t really know if I’ll see you again. I hope so.  But there are mysteries in this world, things that are uncertain.   Like if something really fell from the sky and they actually did recover alien bodies and they’re covering it all up.  I’ve learned to live with mysteries, mostly.  Maybe even learn to revel in them.  But, like I said, I hope so—that I will see you again. But if I don’t, then just know this life was enough. It was perfect—beautiful—even in its mysteries and imperfections.  Remember that.

I hope it’s a long time from now.  But if for some sudden unexpected reason, it’s not, I wanted you to know.

When the day comes.

The Smell of Adventure

It’s an alluring scent.  Confident, but not pretentious.  Strong, but in an understated way.  With vague notes of wood and spice and musk.

Somewhere along my journey, I’ve read or heard that our sense of smell is the most powerful of the five.  I’m not sure if that’s a fact or not, but in my experience, there’s something about certain smells that rescue long-forgotten memories from the recesses of my noisy brain.

The sweet smell of freshly cut grass returns me to the summers of my thirteenth year when I pushed a lawn mower across countless yards in my neighborhood.

When I walk onto a basketball court, inhaling the cocktail crafted from the mixture of sweat, rubber, and ambition, I’m swept back to the George C. Marshall High School gymnasium where I spent so many hours with friends and teammates.

As I write these words, I can’t remember how many years it’s been since I smelled Maxwell House coffee brewing in a stove-top percolator, but the mere thought of it returns me to my grandmother’s kitchen in rural Alabama.

This morning, I got up and went through my morning rituals.  I showered.  I shaved.  I sloshed on my chosen fragrance for the day.  Bug spray.  Deep Woods Off, to be exact.  Not my traditional aftershave, I’ll admit.  But I knew that Chanel de Bleu and Aramis would only serve as an invitation for the flies and mosquitoes I would encounter in the wilderness of North Alabama today.  And since I’m not wild about the idea of contracting Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever or Zika, or simply being today’s special on the bug buffet, I shrouded myself in a fog of DEET.

Normally, when I finish a day of hiking, I’ll head straight for the shower.  But not tonight.  There was something I needed to get on the page.  You see, today I set out on my journey without a destination in mind.  I just threw the backpack in the 4Runner, started the engine and pulled into the street.  As I drove, I had multiple options to head toward familiar paths. But not today.  Today, I just kept driving.

In less than two hours, I found myself staring down at the Little River Canyon Falls, near Fort Payne, Alabama.  The roar of thousands of gallons of water pouring over the rocks is magical to me.  Since we’ve had heavy rains the last few weeks, the falls were majestic.  And the forest was thick and green in the canyon.  After finishing my adventures there, I drove another thirty minutes to DeSoto Falls and found myself rewarded once more for taking this unplanned journey.  DeSoto was cauldron of white, throwing mist high into the air, blanketing me in her refreshing spray.

You might find yourself wondering what all this talk of smells and unplanned journeys and waterfalls has to do with you.  There were a few lessons in my adventure today I thought I might share.  The first is that sometimes an unplanned journey can reward you with something remarkable.  It hadn’t occurred to me how much rain we’ve had lately and what that would mean for these falls I was seeing, strangely, for the first time.  Normally, if I had planned a trip looking for waterfalls, I would have headed to Tennessee or North Carolina today—which is where I will likely be tomorrow, if the road takes me there.   The second lesson is that while Deep Woods Off was never part of my childhood forays into the woods, it will forever be the smell that reminds me to get out of my routine–to have an adventure–and sometimes just go where the road takes me—looking for waterfalls.

I suppose there’s one final lesson I should share.  I hope you’re still paying attention, because this is important.  Always, and I mean always, keep your mouth closed when you’re basting your body in bug spray. That stuff smells bad.  But it tastes even worse.

Bus Stop: A Brief Fiction

He was standing on the curb wearing his navy polo and a pair of chinos (flat-front, not pleated), rocking a kind of business-casual look.  With neatly-parted hair and new(ish) shoes, Max was a study in perfection. He tried not to make eye contact with his companions at the bus stop.  Idle conversation wasn’t his thing.  The day had started well and the familiar anxiety of a Monday morning wasn’t as pronounced as it normally was. There was no point in inviting more of it.  The bus ride itself would be unpleasant enough.

 

If loneliness made a noise, Max might have thought, it was surely the sound of an approaching bus in an overcast dawn.  The creak and moan and shudder of steel and rubber rolling over asphalt; gears complaining as a weary driver coaxed and pleaded and, finally, forced the transmission into compliance; and the squall and whine of fatigued brakes joined together in a foreboding soundtrack for the day.

 

Max waited for the others to board like he always did, hoping his preferred seat would still be available on the bus.  He liked to sit in the middle, where he could disappear into the drone of passengers chattering and rumble of the diesel engines. He took a deep breath, steeling himself, as he climbed the worn-rubber steps onto the bus and glanced down the walkway. Thank God. His seat was unoccupied.  He could lean against the wall and peer out at the passing sights, enjoy just a little more peace before the real challenges of the day began.

 

It would be years later before Max would realize loneliness might even have its own smell. The alchemy of sweat, freshly shampooed hair, and cinnamon pastries (even though there was no eating allowed on the bus) joined the diesel fumes, birthing an odor he would never forget.   But that would be later.  This morning, he slid into the seat and plopped his backpack to his left, a hopeful barrier against the possibility of some other passenger wanting to join him in his sanctuary.

 

Max got on the bus at the corner of Journey Avenue and Rushing Street.  Fortunately, there was only one remaining stop until his destination.  Usually, only one or two passengers boarded at that stop, so the odds were good he would have the seat to himself this morning. Fingers crossed.  This day might not be so bad after all.  No one had said anything to him this morning.  That was a good sign.  Max looked for things like that.  There were signs everywhere if you just watched for them.

 

But this morning, he had misread the omens.  When she sat down next to him, Max was crestfallen, even though she had smiled, waiting patiently for him to transfer his book bag from the seat to his lap.  He did it politely, somehow managing to hide his reluctance and fear. Max managed a muttered Welcome in response to her thank-you.

 

The scent of strawberries and lilac wafted from her, filling Max with an unfamiliar emotion.  He didn’t recognize her—couldn’t even remember ever seeing her on the bus before.  So he allowed himself the risk of quick glance, hoping to remain undiscovered.

 

“I’m Lucy.”

 

In just minutes Max’s emotions had run the obstacle course of peace, fear, hope, and now he was facing shear panic.  Oh, no.  Stupid. Stupid.  Stupid.  But gathering his dignity, as he always did, he managed a reply.

 

“Max,” he muttered.  “Pleased to meet you.”  Manners were important to Max.  Even when you didn’t feel like being courteous, it was the right thing to do.

 

Max felt the bus gaining speed.  One more left turn and his destination would be in sight.  But for now, he was trapped.

 

“It’s my first day to take the bus,” she said.  “We just moved.  My Mom drove me the first couple of days.  But she started her new job today, so here I am.”

 

Something in the way Lucy spoke, the sound of her voice, or how she smelled—like hope, maybe—washed away most of Max’s bourgeoning anxiety.  Normally, Max would have just grunted a courteous reply.  But he felt something unfamiliar in the moment—it wasn’t boldness—but something close to confidence.  It was enough to allow him the gamble of a reply.

 

“The bus isn’t so bad.  If you don’t mind the smell and the noise.”

 

Lucy nodded a smile.  By now, Max was actually willing to make eye contact.  He noticed Lucy poking the frame of her glasses, pushing them back onto her delicate nose.  Max thought she was pretty, with her cherubic cheeks, porcelain skin and wavy black hair.  He had never really talked to girls before.  For that matter, he didn’t really talk to anyone.  It was just safer that way.

 

His Mom had always told Max to be brave.  She told him he was smart. (He was.)  She told him he was funny. (In a good way.)  And she told him that some day, even though he didn’t fit in now, he would.  “Kids are mean sometimes,” Max, she said. “But it gets better.”  All that was probably true.  His Mom wouldn’t lie to him.  But still.

 

As the bus doors opened, legions of pre-adolescent boys and girls poured onto the concrete sidewalks, some of the dragging wheeled book bags behind them, others stooped under the weight of book laden backpacks and expectation, Max waited his turn to disembark.  He looked at Lucy who was gathering her things.   He saw something familiar in her eyes and the way her eyebrows were drawn almost imperceptibly inward.

 

“Know your way around the building yet?” he asked.

 

“Not really.  Especially finding my homeroom,” she said.  “This place is a lot bigger than my old school.”

 

Suddenly, Max felt as if he had been transported away from all of the worry and fear and isolation—away from the taunts and judgment.  The sound of children clambering off the bus somehow seemed silenced and for a moment, he stood with Lucy, alone on an island of anticipation.

 

“I could show you the way,” Max said.  “If you want.”

How do you measure a life?

It’s a place where old men will gently lift a hand from the steering wheel offering a waive to oncoming cars, where generations of families lay beside one another in solemn church cemeteries, where muddy dogs of indeterminate heritage roam free of human restraint.  And though it’s not the place where I was raised, it’s the place  I have always called home.

On that gray Tuesday  morning, I left before I should have.  I’m not sure why.  I suppose after so many years I just needed to go home. There was a time when this journey required travel over an ancient U.S. highway that meandered through small towns, where one drove alongside the rattle and whoosh of coal and log trucks spewing oily black diesel smoke from chrome exhaust pipes. But not today.  Today’s trip was mostly over a freshly paved stretch of interstate that delivered me to rural Alabama far more quickly than I had expected. Despite the sputtering rain, just a few days after Christmas, this was a peaceful journey, when most drivers were still enjoying their respite from daily commutes or other urgent matters.

Somewhere along my path, the reassuring voice of my GPS urged me to exit the interstate and begin the final leg of my journey home—my journey back through time and memories.  Eventually, I turned onto what had been a narrow kidney-rattling road that the county had once deemed paved.  Wider now, the road was also adorned with bright yellow lines running down its center, cautioning me to stay to the right.  I had already passed the funeral home where she would be memorialized, where I would soon be expected to share some words that might honor this woman who had meant so much to so many of us.  In a place so many of my family had been honored in the past, I hoped I was up to the task.

I rehearsed the words once more.

How do you measure a life?

As I pressed further into the pines, passing double-wide trailers and fragile “stick-built” homes through which dim light and mild winds might easily pass, I drew closer to my father’s childhood home.  Once nothing more than a log cabin, I passed the home in which I spent so many hours—the smell of coffee, frying bacon, and love wafted through my mind, as did the sound of my slightly-built grandmother’s unceasing soft whistling. A two-car garage had supplanted the portion of the house that had once been a general store, a place where both bodies and spirits had found nourishment.

I neared the cemetery where she would be placed to rest, quietly mouthing the words.

Is it measured by the worldly riches we possess in this life?  Surely not. 

Stepping from my car, I noticed the giant Oak tree that stood in front of the church.  I imagined my father and his two brothers as boys, plotting their next adventure or perhaps whispering about some beautiful girl.  I imagined my grandfather, his worn black-leather King James Bible in hand, climbing the steps to teach yet another Sunday School lesson.  I saw my grandmother, though never losing track of her three boys, quietly encouraging a young mother holding her infant child.

Or is a life measured by the achievements for which we might be admired?  Achievements are often surpassed. 

 

This morning had been incongruous—warmer than it should have been, even for an Alabama December.  While the roads I had travelled were different, the destination was somehow unchanged.  After spending some quiet moments wandering the grounds of the New Canaan Baptist Church, I headed back to the funeral home, where tears and warm embraces would accompany sometimes awkward laughter.  As if to punctuate the disparate emotions with which I struggled, I encountered three empty Amazon boxes blowing across the road.  What a peculiar thing, these boxes.  In a place where Christmas gifts were once purchased only after a forty-five-minute drive to town, often by parents of limited means, now FedEx and UPS deliver here.

Might our lives be measured by the fame we enjoy?  Remarkable people are often not famous and famous people are often not very remarkable.

When the moment finally came, after the music had played and the preacher had said his words, I rose to face my family and the many friends who had gather here to honor this mother, this aunt, this grandmother, this sister and friend.  I had not expected to be overcome, to need to press back tears, but as I looked into the eyes of my family my voice quivered. Moisture pooled in the corners of my eyes. These were not tears of sorrow, but of gratitude for the woman and family I had the privilege of honoring—gratitude for home.  And while I had struggled with the words more than a writer should, they came.

Perhaps a life is best measured by how someone makes us feel.  In her presence I felt safe.  I never felt hurried.  I felt her kindness and her compassion.   I felt her determination.  In a time when I might have expected myself to be more, or when others surely did, in her presence I felt as if I were—enough.   

 

Long after our memories have left us unable to recall all the details of a life, we will never forget how someone made us feel.   

 

Or perhaps a life is best measured in the stories we will tell one another about someone.  Stories about kindness.  Stories about humility.  Or even perhaps stories of a well-deserved rebuke. 

 

If we will but tell those stories, the ones that make us laugh and the ones that make us cry, we honor the legacy of a life well-lived.  These are the treasures left behind for those of us who weep.

In the memory of how someone made us feel and in the stories we tell one another about them we honor them. So today, tell one another the stories.  Tell one another how she made you feel.  And be grateful for the time we had with her—for the time we have with one another.  For if it is by these things we measure a life, hers was truly remarkable. 

 

As I left my family that day—as I left home—I drove without turning on the radio.  I switched off my phone. I wanted to be present, to be mindful of the gift this day had been.  I wanted to feel all of its emotions.  Sometime during the morning, the rain had stopped.  I rolled down the window, wanting to feel the breeze on my face and hear the sound of tires rolling over the pavement, and to inhale deeply the scent of damp earth and trees—to hear and see and feel home.  And though I was returning to where I live, I was taking home—and her—with me.  As I always have.

The Letters I Kept

I can’t recall the last hand-written letter I ever received.  I suppose it was sometime in the middle 1980s when my college and high school friends had scattered to pursue their dreams and face the vagaries of life. But back in “the day,” when hair was big and I wore, dare I admit, Calvin Klein jeans, I remember my excitement over receiving a letter from my Mom, Dad, or perhaps, a young lady who for some strange reason might have thought I was worth the time and energy it took to put pen to paper. I’m all in on email, texting and the variety of technological ways we connect today, but there is something about “snail mail” that I miss.

 

Because I’m a hopeless collector of memories, you know, ticket stubs, worthless trinkets that crowd my drawers, and yellowed scraps of newsprint, I probably have every letter ever written to me.  Letters from my grandmothers, my friends, and, yes, old flames.  I don’t keep them because I live in the past.  I keep them because they remind me of who I am.  I keep them because they connect me to the people I love, the challenges we faced and the victories we enjoyed.  On the rare occasion I pull them out to read a few. They make laugh.  Sometimes they bring a tear to my eye.  Especially the ones from my grandmothers for whom I held so much affection and admiration.

 

Those letters are more than yellowed paper and fading ink.  They are a part of the person who took the time to write me.  When they might have been doing something else, they chose sit down and scribe their thoughts.  They chose to invest some of their life in mine, sharing their hopes with and for me, inviting me into their world, peeking into mine, and, sometimes, sharing a bit of their own soul.  None of them are typed.  They were all written in their own hand with a stamp (licked, not peeled) affixed and then dropped into a big blue box or perhaps placed in a black one with an upturned flag.  I’m grateful for their effort.

 

Every so often, I get a hand-written thank you note, or a card that has a personalized message.  I still get excited when I see a hand addressed envelope.  Call me strange.  Call me old.  Call me a cab.  Maybe, I’m all of those things. Probably, I am.  Okay, we all know it.  I’m a little of both.  I know it’s odd that I can still recall the combination to P.O. Box 41 at Birmingham-Southern College.  I know it’s odd that and on past visits, before they tore down the Snavely Center, I would wander to the second floor and turn the dial of the box just to see if it still opened.  But maybe not.  I think I was just looking into that tiny box to peer into the lives of so many people who sent letters to that address, wondering if they were still there, if they still thought of me, as I do of them.

 

Most of you who read this will know how to text, or email me, or send me a message on FaceBook.  And I would love that.  But if you want my “snail mail” address, just ask.  And if you send me a letter, just know it will end up in a safe place and one day, when I’m really old, I’ll look back at it with gratitude.  To Vince, Tommy, Melinda, Anne, and you, Mom and Dad, and to so many others, don’t worry.  Our secrets are still safe with one another.  I have to go now.  My Calvin Klein’s are in the dryer and I’m afraid they’re gonna shrink if I don’t get them out now.

 

Peace.

I Wonder What She Sees

She sits by the window watching,

Through dim eyes

Bright light adorning her smile;

I wonder what she sees.

She watches rain and clouds and

Trees bending in the wind,

Some pup roaming by;

I wonder what she sees.

Children playing long ago or

Some vision of younger days,

Maybe her soldier’s return;

I wonder what she sees.

Perhaps a winter’s snow,

Logs ablaze in the fire,

Or waves lapping in the sand;

I wonder what she sees.

People passing on a busy street

Or me

Sitting nearby;

I wonder what she sees.

She sits by the window watching.

I wonder what she sees.

I am Home

The scent of wet cut grass and

the sound of the cawing crows that circling

far above;

White hot coal burning in the fireplace, snapping

and

the smell of bacon

frying

in a timeless skillet,

black as night;

The laughter of cousins

and the gentle murmur,

parents talking their grown up talk,

eating fat slices of pecan and coconut pie,

drinking bitter black coffee

boiling hot;

The baying cattle

and the barking dogs,

The roaring rattle of trucks

racing down a battered road;

Quilts heavy upon me on a starry winter’s night;

The quiet whistle and

the strong frailty of a gentle old woman

roaming the rooms

of an ancient white-washed house;

The sound of rain

battering a tin roof

and the startling thunder,

The symphony of frogs and crickets and katydids;

Red and green lights glowing

on a Christmas Eve

and the promise

of the coming morn;

The alarming blast of

firecrackers

and the joyful terror

of children and

Parents that caution;

These things.

Long ago.

And far away

Yet.

I am home.