Fireside audio brought to you by cold April morning…
Mist rises over Still Pond. Mist rises over golden pasture. Mist rises over the paint-chipped town. Mist rises over the bay that spreads far and wide at my feet. The feet that used to stomp on the rolling hills of the Piedmont just there across the water. FISH. Damn he’s taken off with the bait. A splash to the left of the pier just behind me: osprey’s morning fishing and she’s got one and settles with it back onto her nest on top of a piling. A fishing boat checks crab traps a few hundred yards away. And the Piedmont is still there like a faded pencil line across the horizon of my past. And a man strolls up wearing the lemon-lime Kent County work hooded sweatshirt. “Any luck?” And we converse for a while. Taking friendly cues from the water lapping against rock. And I quickly learned the language I was born into wasn’t the right language so I changed it a bit maybe to make my friend more comfortable but maybe to better absorb his ideas. And I’ve always been wary of my habit of changing my accent-less language the hard language I was born into in the sophisticated cities across the bay at the base of the Piedmont that language is our time but knows nothing of Big Time knows nothing of the land and water and my companion’s language lapped against me the language of Big Time and in it I could hear his generations. I cannot hear generations in the language spoken across the bay. And we exchanged phone numbers and he invited me to the Legion for music on Saturday night and gave me the number of a waterman who sells whole blue cats for 70 cents a pound and if you ever need a real friend you go fishing at dawn because I’ve had luck. Though no fish. And my friend retreated to the big orange dump truck when the backhoe arrived to begin hauling off thousands and thousands of pounds of driftwood from the beach readying it for summer swimming. And behind the beach the trees are filling out green and from my spot at the end of the pier I could barely see the empty restaurant through them. The empty restaurant that I’m aiming to fill. Letter of Intent. LOI. The language of this time sent off by my agent the buyer’s agent to the seller’s agent. The agents converse in the language of our time while I sit waiting with my fishing rod in hand for our time to determine my place in it. While I fish the waters of Big Time as I reload and I reload and I reload the bait of chicken livers and I think silently a whisper of a thought I barely think the thought that I’m due some luck… and HUSH HUSH! I put my foot on the thought like it’s someone else’s cigarette butt I’ve come across on the sidewalk. Because I have all the luck my smiling girls my laughing girls in their spring dresses covered in potting soil Papa, you count while my sister and me hide. And I count to ten as my little A. ducks beneath an overturned baby pool in front of me and my little W. follows her crawling under and as I get to ten. Ready or not here I come! their bare feet are sticking out heels up and I pretend not to notice Hmmm, I wonder where they’ve gone off to… I say aloud and big sister giggles then little sister giggles and I reach down and throw the pool off them and everyone shouts AHHHHHH! And big sister gets up and little sister gets up after and big sister says Okay Papa, now you count while we hide. And she gets back on the ground and pulls the empty plastic baby pool over her again and little sister crawls under and it goes like this again and again my luck again and again my luck so who am I to ask for anything else? HUSH! But I’m whispering still. Desiring. To carve my little place in the beach cottage restaurant up the hill looking out over the bay. Serving a warming April broth of catfish fume and buttermilk infused with dried foraged seaweed and last summer’s lemon verbena. Amuse bouche of crab tart with quail egg yolk cured in sardine garum with wild spring onion blossoms. Of charcuterie made from cuts of invasive fish: snakehead salami. Salad of foraged spring greens. Bread course of smokey hoe cakes fried in lard lightened with fermented honey butter. An appetizer of shellfish in smoked tomato broth with vinegar and Worcestershire and paprika. Filet of butter poached catfish with charred green asparagus and garnished with spicy mustard greens laced with granny smith vinegar…
Smell of gasoline on my fingers VROOM VROOM, VROOM VROOOOM! Dark country rock and roll plays as I spit fire across the tarred asphalt road crisscrossing squares of yellow and green and gold I’m a mother fucking rockstar now striking down chore after chore riding past the horned highland cattle heads bowed to the earth where quiet morning mists have long risen into nothingness. The field of blooming mustard greens recenters me and the thirty-mile-per-hour sign at the beginning of my little town returns humility to my red-blooded throttle. The school bus in front of me stops at the train tracks and I stop behind it and glance at the small post office. At the old antique warehouse falling back into Big Time. The school bus drives on and I follow. And I think (and for reasons I do not know) that the best part of being human is weakness. How small I am. And the radio is turned off and I inhale humility. Gasping. Passing the park where my children play. I wish the people who love me knew how small I am. How weak. When they’re angry with me. When they expect more from me. They’d like the same in return and I struggle to give in. I’m more myself with the friendly stranger clearing away driftwood. He expects nothing but a bit of conversation. And that’s all the better. It feels like that’s all I can give. Clearing away driftwood. Removing dead weight. To make room. Before I grow around the rot. Before the rot is within me. I already see it in the garden and around the mouth of the gutters and at the fence line how quickly nature chokes. When just a moment ago I was begging February for March and March for April. April’s hands are caressing my throat. Long fingernails tickle. The pinky sharp, turning, lacerating flesh. Traitor, I whisper, with the red blood boiling up into my eyes. Traitor. She licks the drop of blood from her fingertip. She kisses the wound with the bloodstained lips. I am Time, she whispers in reply. And hitches a ride on lilac breeze. Leaving me. And with thoughts like these I am visited by angels. And with thoughts like these I am no longer of our time. I am free. And I walk to the front of the house. And I kneel at the foot of the lilac. April.
Your voice ges stronger with the girls. The stranger? He is further on, reads generations, which is kind of big tme. April leaves us to chance and anniversaries. It was cold here last night and cat ice on the small pond.
Just love these audios Paul. You've a fantastic voice. Love to read the words too as you go. Wow.