New Covenant Bound

Elders

30 Elders High fanlight of late morning whitens the road threading the twin lakes south Tan Lick to Dewport now dipping to cross Greves’s Run two shitepoke green ascetics standing on one leg in the gravel shallows the Trail now rising steep to the cut scored along Pease Bluff fingers of water streaking the limestone face scrub pines at the margins drawing their noonhour shadows back into themselves. Pulling off on a narrow turnout overlooking a scarp of red cedars I see across on the other side a loose cluster of buildings near a boat ramp I know would be Cordyn and I know that Bethel Grove would lie another mile to the south there where I can just make out 31 a white sail gliding among the arrowpoints of light barbing the water . . . My father remembers fire: blown sparks from his Uncle Buell’s smithing iron scorching red eyes in the lilac leaves, transparent scarves of yellow flame smoking up from the locust boles into a lowering February sky — him and his father burning off a new tobacco bed, him and his grandfather hunting camped on a bluff above the Cumberland the two of them sitting under scattershot stars his grandfather telling him of seeing as a boy The General Clifton blow its boiler off the Birmingham landing, my father dreaming that night of hearing the stricken cries of the perishing of seeing that fire out on the water . . . * * * * * * 32 My father remembers a needlepoint picture: Jesus seated in Glory with the words Christ is the Head Of This House The Unseen Guest At Every Meal The Silent Listener To Every Conversation that hung above his father’s kitchen chair who’d lean back after Sunday dinner and sing out “Well I’m most done traveling this rough rocky road and it’s time my soul headed home” — a game he had with the kids — who’d sing out “Papa what will you do if you can’t afford the hearse?” “Sit on my bed and wait for angels to come.” “What will you do if you can’t afford the preacher?” “Pay him with quarters I stole from the moon.” 33 “Papa what will you do if you can’t afford the casket?” “Charge it to the wind” he’d sing “and let the dust settle it . . .” My father remembers lying awake listening to the locusts in the orchard chirring to split their skins listening for the screech owl haunting the cedars’ attic rooms and finally The Jackson Flyer blue traveler taking the high curve out of Orton Station unwinding her long black veil across the Barrens moaning it out by midnight — once for those she takes away twice for those she’s leaving. * * * 34 " Sometimes, even now, after forty-odd years, the sun will play tricks with my eyes. I’ll look out the kitchen door here and think I see my trellis full of yellow roses. See the bee martins flitting in and out amongst them. I’ll see the wild cherries and hickories, the orchard beyond the yard. The blackberry thickets all down the bank to the creek, where the peppermint started. Come spring, the daylilies by the front steps were the first thing to bloom. Them, and the apple rose by the cellar door. When it got warm enough to unshutter the windows, I’d have the boys go down and gather some of that sweet river clay, and I’d rub down the fire box and the hearth bricks with it. I’d clip a vine of flowering blue-monk and twine it around the grate. The house would fill up with a warm breeze coming up off the river, and it felt like being borned again. I think it’s my roses I miss the most. We never could get them to grow proper here in town. ...