Sifting Your Life

SEEKERS My name, she knows, and speaks, as if we have known each other in some other time, some other place. No other, speaks my name as she unfolds it. Life has merged us with our sufferings throughout our seeking, to know, to understand. We are not afraid to reach out into the universe. Not to do so, is stifling. CHAUNCEY SPENCER Here, in this still quiet garden, tending with slow, gentle care, neatly trimming the weeds away, was Chauncey, a rebel, with flair. Long years gone before him- his adventures laid out in a book- he carefully tends the flowers here, in Edenkraal’s nook. In his youth, seeking wings to travel, this home he had left years before. He returned to get things in order but time slipped away, more and more. Now, he will, remain here; protecting the legacy he’s drawn, Chauncey, a Tuskegee Airman, tending to Edenkraal’s lawn. Written about 1985 after a visit to Anne Spencer’s home in Lynchburg, Virginia. I later visited Chauncey Spencer, in his home, for an interview. GOD’S FISTFUL OF PENNIES A fistful of pennies laid in my palm, warm, moist pennies. Pennies, smelling of copper, spilled out to me from her tiny, closed fist. God’s pennies. What would God do with her fistful of pennies? WHITE BLANKETS She sleeps. Waiting is the worst part. Sounds of sleep are reassuring. Checks of white yarn in the woven blanket rise and fall comfortingly. The hour passes slowly. Her heart grows weaker. as the battle rages. I cannot imagine Life, without Mama. While I know Life, is only a matter of comings and goings, I am not ready. Give me time. Next to death, waiting is the worst part. The white blanket comforts me. LIKE A DREAM Sometimes, I think I dreamed it all, when asparagus grew wild; Lady Slippers peeped at me from the woods path’s crooked mile. Sometimes, I think a world of fairies slipped down from the hills casting winsome violets where moss grew, damp and still, with a glint of sun, like diamonds, on rain-teared holly leaves. Sometimes, I think I dreamed it all. What a tale, do fairies weave! SACRED JOURNEY TO PEACE He left us … his soul rising high above, and beyond, the star-studded evening skies -high above the rolling hills -higher than ever the eye could see. The essence of his sweet soul surrounds us always. This is his sacred journey to the peace he sought, but could not find. Peace was searching him, and now, has found him. BLOOD ON WHITE LINEN Slow to Perceive We rushed our steps on that Maundy Thursday as we made our way to the church. Communion was spread beneath a white cloth as a small crowd gathered inside. Evening organ music had an appropriate dark and somber tone. I thought of Jesus’ grievous suffering, waiting alone in the garden, praying, while his sweat came down like blood. . . . I could not perceive it. Communion began and it was my husband’s turn the plastic cup was stuck. I cringed, as he persisted with it. It shattered in his hand, spattering his clothes with dark grape juice (Presbyterian wine). I stifled a giggle, grateful I was missed, especially, my new Easter jacket. . . . Recapturing, again, the somber mood. I took a cup and drank of it. A quiet prevailed on the crowd, as we left, thoughts of tomorrow’s Good Friday. I was deep in thought, as a loud voice called, “A man has fallen! He’s hurt.” I recognized the man lying on the pavement, which severely injured his face. Hesitantly, I removed my jacket and laid it over his shoulders, careful to avoid his bleeding face. Help was on the way. A man lifted my white jacket, and swathed the bleeding face, smearing red blood on the linen jacket I cringed, trying to be generous, but thinking, instead, of my Easter jacket, unaware, I owed him my thanks. We walked away that Maundy Thursday, pondering the night’s events, my husband, spattered with Presbyterian wine and I, with blood on white linen. RELUCTANT BERRY PICKER I wore Papa’s overalls, big and baggy, and his ragged old sunhat, offering some protections from the heat. The berries grew in the tall weedy fields where we had to watch closely for copperheads and rattlesnakes, finding their way from Billy Goat Mountain (it really was a Piedmont hill) to the cool clean stream flowing through the flatland. Barbs on the vines would grab on to my skin sending deep shivers crawling over my body, even now, when I remember it. Papa’s old shirt sleeves were drawn up close on my wrists, tight as I could get them. I tried to keep chiggers off me. Those things would dig into me and grind under the skin with a maddening itch. Daddy would put salty fatback, turpentine, kerosene, or some of his good remedies on me. I had to have the thickest pair of old leather boots to be found- wouldn’t go into the fields without them. The absolute best part of berry picking was my grandmother’s cobblers. The smell coming from her oven with the sugared berries cooking; the sight of that flaky crust, all shiny with sugar glaze on top. And that taste was just divine. SUMMER LOVE ON WHITE LAKE SANDS Bronzed and beautiful, you glided through sun-shimmered waters over the white sands of Carolina’s White Lake. I felt the firmness of your muscled farm boy frame as our bodies found each other and your arms closed around me just before we emerged, like water nymphs, from the depths of the lake. In that scorching summer, I did not “save” my kisses. We were free then, chased and chasing, doing a crazy shag to the beat of The Embers’ “Faraway Places” or “I’m Just a Fool” in love, dancing on the lake shore’s pier, talking into the wee hours. It was a time for moonlight rides, circling the lake on Lily the III. You teased and courted with your silly sense of humor that wonderful summer on White Lake.