September Sudden & Shining

Coming to you from the couch in Roundagator right before Highway 61 starts on Mississippi Public Broadcasting.

September 30th 8:46 pm 

I  wrote only twice this whole month - here, right now, makes three. All of the stories lost into the ether now, gone with the harvest. 

Let’s see - 

The sun setting low below 8 pm now, our world of summer disappearing.

The blue light of morning through the window slow, you become to me. 

The fields turned green to yella to brown, then gone. The whole of the agrarian world working to call it up, the weather holding, no rain for a month or two months, we have lost count and I don’t ask anymore if it’s in the forecast. The boyish looking meteorologist in Greenville telling the same story every evening, kind of amazing - no rain, sweeping his hands indicating heat and tightly smiling. 

We walk into the night, the other evening a tractor met us in the turnrow as it began to reap. It’s bright lights startling and I wonder what the man inside must have thought of us. Dust soon before we made it to the road. Dust soon in the air once the fields are dry of morning dew, the whole world moving with work. The grain trucks replace the well pumps with their roaring up and down the roads at top speed, rumbling. 

We were getting a car running out of Merigold and began laughing at every new wasp discovery, the gas tank and the windows and the trunk and the hood. Barefoot in the gas station parking lot, their stingers vibrating on the hot concrete.

Big windows, pickled okra, blue skies. 

We were in the juke joint chapel again, and neither of us could keep the beat but he was playing. Then we were across the street in a shack and they were showing us the mechanical drawing that won the ribbon in high school. And it’s sort of a marvel. Because the man I always saw stocking at the grocery store draws comic book heroes and writes songs, and he’s an artist, because it’s true, we all are. And we rode home with a guitar in the back seat, and it rings like a bell it’s so sweet. I’m beginning to see color, I’m beginning to hear music. Maybe. And everyone that comes over plays for a little while. He keeps guitars behind the counter for the slow hours on that road that’ll bring you to Oxford.

Then we were out near Gunnison in an old house looking at photos of when they used to boat up to the house. We climbed the Indian mound and we ate grapes off of the vine and searched for the hidden tunnel beneath the house. We saw the obelisk they built so you could see his grave clear from the river. No wind, no ghosts, no snakes, no Sunday service-station-bought bologna sandwiches. She said sometimes after a hard rain, toe bones start to stick out, they have to call the tribe to come and bless them and bury them again. They put pennies on the windowsill to keep the ghosts out.

To wake, to awaken. 

The harvest is such a way in the sunset.

Rode out near Duncan and left with an eight point buck crossing the road and all his does following along behind him.

Rode out down the mountain and the buzzards had their wings open to the sun, lined along the red barn roof. 

Wilbur deep in the mud of the bayou. Birds calling at the stars. We watched the moon come up burning last night. The night before when it was first full, we rode out to look at the cotton ready to be harvested, they look like fields of snow in the daytime, electrified in their look by a blue and cloudless sky. The timing doesn’t always work out to see the bolls before the fields are clear or the moon is full. But the other night we stopped into the soft dust and the land was glowing and the sky was softly navy. When our eyes settled into the night it became brighter. It seemed like the plants themselves were alight, and it was hard to stop taking pictures. Meanwhile, no one passing on the Number One highway that runs closest to the river. We rode to town and way back out into the country, one of those nights where it was hard to stop riding. The whole world alive again in the moonlight, listening on the bridge for deer and raccoons and telling stories. Out to the Sunflower river, the water running so slowly that if you caught the wrong light it looked dried up. Tossing a rock to hear it splash lazily. Thinking of Billie Joe McAllister. 

Pimento cheese sandwiches, rummikub, smiling, sunshine. 

The other day plowing with the Mankiller tiller, barefoot, the soil warm and soft and sinking. He planted rapeseed and spinach, just to see. The plot looks dark and beautiful and a thing to be proud of, mowing all around the pond, a dozen turtles, the mystery of the depths gentle, too. 

Doing the best we can with all we have, we have so much.

The fall garden as much of a marvel a the summer garden. We planted three or four types of greens and had a mess for supper the other night; young greens thick and needing thinning. I had the onions out waiting and he said “you must be hungry,” and I said, no just excited. Hamhock and black eye peas and greens and cornbread, makes you want to dance and sing. 

Riding home from the bridge and the soft dust of the land and it hasn’t rained for so long and there haven’t been any tornados, and the harvest season has by all accounts been good, better than in recent memory. And it seems like Mississippi here is wide open, peaceful, good, giving, kind. It seems like we are there in her arms of the sky and the land and quiet water, before the deer start jumping and the rain and wind begin again. It seems like maybe the land really does love us, we have almost witnessed the land long enough for it to witness us. 

We were out on the porch in the special light of it, it never fails, ironweed ten feet tall and leaning. He said, it reads, love is a need. It can never be fulfilled. Like a roof you must maintain, like survival, the need can shift. You will always be in pursuit. 

Barefoot. All of a sudden, the leaves are crunching underfoot. All of a sudden, fall. Amen.

A huge big terrific tremendous thank you to everyone who made the Prairie Arts Festival in West Point at the Black Prairie Blues Museum at the beginning of the month. We had so much fun and Wilbur made a ton of new friends. They know how to have a good time up on over there. An unforgettable Saturday!

Another big huge hug to everyone who made it to Finster Fest. It never fails to amaze - so much wonderful work and wonderful people in a short two days. We were lucky to set up next to some great artists and made new friends, plus learned about African Dewlap Geese. Dang old dream. Just another deeply memorable Finster Fest in the books. Thank you.

Up next - The One Night Stand at Ole Miss Motel in Oxford, Mississippi, on October 21st from 5 - 9pm. Looking forward to seeing all of the new artists and the “regulars!”

After that, we’ll be in Bay St. Louis on November 11th at the 100 Men Hall. From celebration to celebration. Can’t wait to see y’all. (It says tickets in this link but it’s free!) https://100menhall.com/collections/tickets/products/church-goin-mule

Thank y’all again, over and over. It is so good to know you, and i am so lucky to live this life. Thank you. The music this month is a whole album, some of which i’ve probably shared in the past. Taj Mahal always makes me think of Clarksdale, and as one comment reads somewhere, you can’t be unhappy listening to Taj. Ringing and singing going down the road.