Late Covid American Sojourn: Day 13
“We drove back to the city
under heavy skies,
on grey bands of concrete,”
my mother wrote in one of her early poems, written in 1980.
“I tried to read away
the uneasy suspension
between two lives.”
Four decades later, suspended but pretty much at ease between our own lives, Andrea, Wyatt and I drove north, up Florida’s Gulf Coast, then west, along the concrete bands of Interstate 10, past Chatahoochie and Lake Seminole, across the Apalachicola River, through Mossy Head and Ponce de Leon, Bagdad and Ferry Pass, across Pensacola Bay, then just south of Muscogee, across the Perdido River, the lost river, the Apalachee River, the Blakley, Tensaw and Spanish rivers, along the causeway through Mobile Bay, with its great shipyards, petroleum terminals, oil tank farms, and the U.S.S. Alabama, huge and gray in the harbor.
My mother’s poem, Labor Day 1980, came to mind yesterday, on what would have been her 94th birthday, not only for its echo forty-plus years later, but because Mom was part of the Woodland Pattern two-day poetry marathon, the first day or which was Saturday. We Tolans sponsored an hour dedicated to Sally Tolan’s poetry; each of us recorded Mom’s poems — John, as I recall, read Labor Day 1980.
The Poetry slam was a good thing to look forward to as we crossed the long causeways through Alabama, Dog River, Hippie Beach, Halls Mill Creek, Rabbit Creek, across the state line into Mississippi, and the great Escatawpa River Marsh near the Pascagoula River, its meandering waterways and estuaries: reedy grasslands standing dullm yellow-brown, tapering north toward the horizon, the water flowing south through the grass to the sea.
We passed Biloxi, and a Jimmy Buffett song came to mind:
Down around Biloxi
Pretty girls are dancing in the sea
They all look like sisters in the ocean
Boy will fill his pail with salty water
And the storms will blow from off toward New Orleans…
Just past the Gulfport exit, we turned off I-10, winding south toward the Gulf and the town of Pass Christian. I try to remember why I’ve heard of this, and then recall: it’s where one of my favorite writers, Jesmyn Ward, grew up. Her magnificent novel, Salvage the Bones, one of the best books I’ve read. You don’t know me, Jesmyn, but I’m saying hello to Pass Christian anyway.
Just beyond the town, we find our little off-season cottage. Just in time for Woodland Pattern’s Sally Tolan hour. It’s so moving to see all my brothers and sisters read Mom’s work on her 94thbirthday, and to listen to all her 10 grandchildren sing one of her finest poems, as Marie plays harp to a composition by Alice:
I rinse the lentils, slice the carrots, chop
the onions, mince the garlic; and as I do,
preoccupations drain away, and peace
comes drifting in. I pour the oil into
the pan, sauté the carrots, onions, garlic;
and as their odor fills the kitchen, remember
other soups, the family ’round the table.
And I wait for my youngest son to come
to this house that never was his home.
It’s been so long. How will we be?
I dump the lentils into the pot, pour
broth and water in. And think of him –
the one who only knew his father ill –
no memories for him of playing ball
or raking leaves with Dad. I know
his father loved him — I wish he knew
it too. And so I try to stir that love
into this sacramental soup for us to share.
This song closes the Woodland Pattern hour, and I close the computer. Happy, inspired, connected, sad, emotionally drained.
Today we get to see brother Yam and his family in Austin. It’s an 8-hour drive. We’ll head out early, cross the Mississippi and the Louisiana Bayou, and, with any luck, roll into Austin well before dinnertime. Yam asked me to bring an alligator, so it might take a little longer than expected.
Late Covid American Sojourn: Day 12
Late Covid American Sojourn: Day 14
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