an older post where the font went ghostly

Sometimes there’s a hum that hovers across and over this patch of land, like cicadas in August or the wheeze of a strange, busted harmonica a little boy might find chucked in with his toys, a mystery song waiting to happen, caught in holes between tin. But tonight the stillness separates and parses the air, like mist rising over a pond early in the morning. Just beyond the cow pasture the old log cabin has on its new face, its two chimneys stouter now and its windows immaculate and maybe even a little impenetrable. I miss its crumbling edges, the triangle of air at the bottom of the front left-hand window. And I am not sure I want the old stone wall around the little cemetery to be restored. I like the mossy moats that separate its stones. There is even talk of cutting down the cedar tree by the cemetery entrance. Its lopsided coniferous grace is a benediction to me, though, a familiar sentinel over the years, when I’ve come to pay my respects to Laura Sorrells Smith, born 1878, died 1905. Last time I was here I stacked a small cairn of stones from the pinewoods by her marker. History is palpable here, a prayer for continuity and awareness, a blessing into kin. The broken places show it best. Their shabby beauty needs the gentle tending that honors their splits and rifts, that lets their fractured beauty be seen by those who need their stories and their lonesome strength. I’ll miss them if they’re fixed. For now I don’t mind moving tousles of pinestraw away from the shapes of angels and the curves of my family name.

the grace of small wantings

I want to learn how to have a cup of loose green tea in the morning rather than three tall steaming cups of strong Italian roast coffee.

I want to learn to remember to wake up early like I used to so I can sit on my deck and watch the sun come up over Sharptop.

I want to learn to know more birds by songs and how to tell the difference between a redtail and a cooper’s hawk from far away.

I want to learn how to forgive myself for forgetting something every morning when I leave for work, usually something that seems essential.

I want to learn how to breathe deeply, all the time not just when I’m stressed and fumble for it like a line tossed to a drowning swimmer.

I want to learn how to play an instrument, preferably an old one with someone’s initials carved in it shallowly before it was handed down to the person I will get it from, a musician maybe who will see me on the street and just hand over this spare guitar or fiddle with a bow, stop busking, and wish me good fortune as I try to overcome the clumsiness of my tiny fingers and teach them how to become friends with string and wood.

I want to learn how to bake an amazing pie, not just a good one. One layered with berries and sugar and latticed with stripes of dough. A house and a rooftop, sustenance, comfort.

I want to learn how to build something out of wood. A shed, some rafters I can lean on when I’m tired, a glider I can prop my feet up in and hear the silence of the winter woods.

I want to find the space for the prayer I’ve always wanted to feel.  Not just to say but to offer without speech. Words will be there, and emptiness, and long loose strands of squirrelnest, and acorns. Pens, because I hoard them and would love to begin to give them away. A swimmer’s goggles, faintly redolent of chlorine, a bar of lemongrass soap, a dog’s collar still husky with the holy wolfish domesticity of dogsmell. A bandaid or two adorned with cartoon characters, maybe Spongebob Squarepants or Spiderman. A sheaf of index cards I stuffed in my raincoat pocket with notes on them from my observations in the Atlanta airport. An old pair of eyeglasses so thick you could start a brushfire with them. A bright blue paper clip. An Indian head penny. A recipe ripped from my stepmother’s Southern Living on the sly, promising me a perfect bowl of gazpacho. When I assemble these things I will stroll around them with my camera out, searching for the perfect angle from which to send up this prayer, and then I will sit down in the short winter grass in front of this prayer and I will watch it start to rise, carried up and off and then back down to me on a current of salutation and numinous grace, the breath of God speechless in the clouds I breathe as I listen.

--©Laura Sorrells 2007

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I wrote this in response to a website writing prompt about what I wanted, back in 2007. I have moved closer to some of these things since then but most of the wanting still applies.