The Fiddler of Driskill Hill: Poems

The Given World

 I had not seen your face in thirty years Until a dream released me once again To be a child upon that columned porch Watching you as you walked with limp and cane, So luminous in day’s new-risen mist That hung between the garden and our house. I always found you there in late July Whose suns would brown my skin and leave you soaked As all day your black muscles moved in work Through rooms you kept yet never could possess. And where you went I followed deep in play Watching the red bandana you’d adjust On hair whose kinks made rings just like my own, And when you ran the lemon-scented cloth Softly over the tables and the chairs Until the fine-grained oak and walnut shone You sometimes hummed or murmured low and long Songs of an ancient people of the law Who once made Pharaoh’s bricks from mud and straw. Midmorning on the porch you had a rest, Drinking a tall iced glass of lemon tea For which by the shady hydrant I would pick Fresh mint as green and tender as our love And you, with such a fuss, would give me hugs. Then in a quiet that settled to a calm Where reason finds its peace by grace alone You watched the sun pour heat upon a slope Whose ripened melons darkened in the light And heard in distant whisperings of the pines Archaic strains, creation’s common tongue. In time you rose and took me to the field And while I held the pail you gathered in By mundane sacral acts fresh elements— The purple hulls, snap beans, potatoes, corn— Then left me with your son to play outside While you went in to make the midday meal. His name was Louis Gene, “Blue Jeans” to us, And jeans were all the two of us had on, The Given World  Barefooted and half-naked as we tried, Where rain had left some pools beneath the swings, To raise up Camelot from southern soil. We sank our hands together in the mire, Our black-and-whiteness swirling into brown And from such well-mixed substance we would shape Sludge towers crudely scooped from shallow moats And then a central citadel we topped With oak-twig poles and leaf-flags from pecans And striped grasshopper-guards who kept their watch. Brothers-in-arms from old Round Table days, We made up tales of Arthur’s plighted knights Who rode forth side by side, the Celt and Moor, Against the evil kings of south and north. And when we tired, the hydrant washed away Caked mud that casually splattered on the mint While we stood spellbound by the heady smells Come from the kitchen window with your song. The floured chicken frying to a crisp, Milk gravy browned with drippings in the pan, Potatoes peeled and boiled, then mashed and mixed With whole fresh milk and butter to a cream, Sweet rows of golden kernels on the cobs, The snap beans steamed with pork chunks, purple hulls— Such flavors and aromas drew us on In common hunger peaked by common fare. Yet once you’d placed the platters and the bowls Upon our dinner table you withdrew With Louis to a smaller, farther room And said a separate grace to our one God. The table cleared, the dishes washed and dried, You helped my kin to bed and quiet naps Those long unairconditioned afternoons In whose great baking light the world grew still. And on the screened back porch you had your chair, A rocker where you nodded off and dozed Until the others woke and called your name. Sometimes I sat beside you on the floor  Playing with Minié balls and arrowheads Dug on our autumn walks from those high banks Down which the sweet blackberries we would pick Fruited outside of history in their time. When older I would fight the Civil War Lining up Rebs and Yanks beneath your feet, A hundred painted soldiers blue and gray Yet of the southern slaves no figurine Except a picaninny stableboy Smiling and holding out an iron ring Toward horsemen in the mansion’s Doric shade. To such flawed reenactments of a dream In which the Rebels always yelled and won You uttered nothing, having heard the tales From great-grandparents who had known them all— Fire-eaters, carpetbaggers...