New Covenant Bound

New Covenant Bound

81 New Covenant Bound Now in the last hour before the sky tilts its edge to meet the earth the sun to raise its thorny crown of light across the water I am passing over Clark Ferry Bridge to the opposite shore of my dark sojourn leaving the place of my first birth first dust turning again to face my life leaving the dead to return to theirs New Covenant bound. East again the route my elders chose once named The Jefferson Davis Highway through Cerulean Springs a generation gone now a few streetlamps still raising dim haloes on bent stalks a sunken row of Tourist Cabins leaning through the edge of night spear grass and green diamonds of broken glass reclaiming the cracked asphalt of bait shops and barbecue stands the sky bereft of travelers 82 but a rusting cut-tin angel trumpeting from a pole above a tavern called The Tin Angel beer sign in the window flicking cold blue flame of a heart as I am released again to open road by a billboard sinking into vines away behind me mocking time and memory: a catfish in a sailor’s suit saying Welcome to Cerulean Springs Gate Way to the Great Lakes of the South — last monument to my lost country and I am rolling into darkness now New Covenant bound. Dropping down into corn and beanflats highway bearing with the willows and water maples lining out Soldier Creek locusts and mudfrogs and weather prophets chirring among the nightwood cold stars still hanging on in their blue heaven. Halfway to Caldwell I cross the L&N my landmark — see it scarring out across the Barrens 83 up into the northern coal fields — leave hardtop for the gravel shortcut into Christian County enter the thick crosshatching of blue pine woods skirting the foot of Royer Bluff then out again into moonlight past the reason for the detour: a scattering of stones and crosses a mute white churchhouse Pilot Rock Missionary Baptist where my name has been enlisted some twenty years falsely now for ten though I would not reclaim it would let it lie as I would ever be New Covenant bound. North for the last leg State 106 Pee Dee to Mose Crossing farmland rippling into low hills black dogwoods and redbuds brush stroked on smoked sky first lights appearing in the drifting houses kitchen eyes in the dark. Spring Hill and an owl abandons the ruins of a wellhouse south fork of Little River 84 bleeding moonlight down toward Iron Bridge where Walnut Lane hooks back into the caves and low palisades. Newstead Station and the last waysign: the depot still sinking in the corner of a hayfield — rails of the CadizSt . Louis Line two generations gone — my own spent childhood sitting on the fallen platform wondering which directions the tracks once led or might have led then as now New Covenant bound. And off to my left now there at last the burn of gray light washed up against the still-night sky above the last line of hills: aura or ghost that draws me on. I circle wide of town coming in from the north on Buttermilk Pike the old drummers’ route climbing Water Tower Hill above the empty stockyards 85 above the gouged rock pit of the quarry. Making the top I pull to the side of the road cut the engine lights of New Covenant spread out below constellations fallen indecipherable like so many the land has died for: the brickyard and seed mills loose floors and grain elevators crumbling down the banks the broken shoulder of the river all given over now to Dixonite King-Phelps Magnetic Wire Dodds AmeriGlass Mid-Continent Textile and Clothing all blazing out the edge of town drawing a few headlights first comers for the shift change sparks returning to a flame. And in the pools of darkness scattered through the heart of Old Town I know the blue dust assembles with the leaves and broken glass and trash 86 in the silenced corners of Elkhorn I know the hopper cars transpire to rust along the switchline back of Armistice Park I know the hands of the firehouse clock mark the same hour some thirty-seven years now as another blackened brick unseen is dropping from the stack of the ice factory into the cinder...