New Covenant Bound

Homecoming

35 Homecoming Gaither to Mt. Oak the Trail winds down the long mid-afternoon hour of jarfly and grasshopper hour of dirtdauber and yellowjacket opens out to a broad hollow flat of loose rock and stickerweed scar of an unnamed crossroad settlement dismantled and given over to Park land a few paths bleeding off the main road burrowing into sawbrier and jackberry thickets a few clearings among the trees old homesites given over to broomsage and sumac love vine and chicory. In one a crutch of broken fence separating nothing wind from wind the bluecane entwining it. In one goldfinches glinting like a handful of coins scattered and rescattered among the thistle. Above another 36 a flock of starlings licking out retreating tongue of black flame across a pale white sky . . . Two things of my grandmother’s I was allowed to look at: her Bible with the hand-tinted illustrations, Jacob’s Ladder The Camp at Canaan The Master Calms the Storm, with the marriages and deaths the births and numbers of the years in spider script across the front pages I’d trace with my fingers my own name and year of my birth the last of the list facing a blank page. The other: her hatbox of old photographs she kept beneath her bed, portraits in rusting sepia snapshots cracking and taped over names of lost friends lost relations penciled on the backs. I came to picture hell as a place in the Bible illustrations like the Hebrew children standing in the fiery furnace or the people going down in the water begging to be let on the ark. I came to picture heaven as the place in the photographs Bethel Grove * * * 37 came to picture us at death gathered at the river waiting for the ferry boat that would take us over pictured somewhere on the other side a white house white curtains at the open windows morning breeze leafing through the redbuds the grape arbor and cornflowers by the garden fence and beneath the ancient poplar a table spread our elders in gaunt coats and Sunday dresses graceful and unburdened now coming and going in the light about the house and yard preparing the homecoming. I picture them stopping to listen as the bell at the ferry landing tolls our arrival picture our mothers and our fathers coming down to the front gate stepping out into the dust of the road to watch for us. 38 " Some people saved up their Briar Rose flour sacks. They came printed with a gingham pattern on the inside. You could wash them and iron them out flat and put them up, and if you had enough, you could have a whole gingham print wall. Usually, we just used newspapers, though we had to change them more often. Then you cut pictures out of the slick papers, the catalogues and magazines, to put over top of the newspaper. We all got to pick out the pictures we wanted to put up. Mother put pictures of furniture over her chair and over the sink. Papa would pick the biggest picture of an automobile he could find for over his chair. Then he’d put smaller pictures of tools or new farm machines around it. Buell picked pictures of cars, too, and pictures of cities, big buildings and churches, all lit up at night. Inez and I didn’t care what the pictures were. We just tried to save enough of the slick papers to cover the wall up over our bed. We liked to lie awake at night and watch the firelight dancing on all the colors. Mother would save little verses from the newspapers and put them up on the wall by the table. Papa would read them to us during meals, or afterward. Before it was time to change the paper again, we would all learn the new verses by heart. I still remember a good many of them — “Beneath the oak leaves murm’ring lowly Whispering to themselves apart Of a dark train moving slowly Sleeps the angel of my heart . . .” 39 The last time I talked with Papa where he could understand me, about two days before he died, we were talking about that. He said, “Do you still remember the one about the sweet rose of heaven?” And I said, “Yes, Papa...