“The man who writes about himself and his own time
is the man who writes about all people and about all time.”
– George Bernard Shaw
I’m not sure that my three kids and five grandkids understand my love for Deep-South foods and customs, and I know for a fact that they do not fully share my love for Bluegrass and old-time back porch music. This is understandable, because they were long separated from my deep-south roots. They perhaps say things like this to themselves: “Dad/Grandpa, you have not lived there for our entire lives! You left and attended college in Maryland and graduate schools in Hawaii and San Francisco. And you have lived out here for more than 40 years! As a family, you and we have lived all over this country and Europe and Asia, and you seldom visit your roots. Where does all this come from?”
I understand, and over the years I have given them bits and pieces of my early live, by sharing stories and by providing a couple of books of poems about that life.
Over the past year, I have had several requests from readers of my Welcome Columns to keep writing about the rural reality of deep-south tenant farms during the Great Depression. I decided to test those readers this month by providing them with a chapter.
And, if I had wanted complete clarity and a simple “follow the bouncing ball” narrative, I could have begun my story something like this:
“I was born to a single mother on a tenant farm in rural Georgia. When I was nine, a man who said he was my father got permission to talk with me as we sat in his car near our residence, an old motor court cabin in tiny Switzerland, South Carolina. He said some forgettable things then offered me a five-dollar bill, then a dollar. I finally accepted a quarter, excused myself and carried it to my mother. I next saw him fourteen years later and we had a real talk. He died when I was 26.”
But I have chosen to tell it this way:
In The Beginning:
She was fifteen, I was nil and we were not together
yet. She must have known, because bewildered him
had seen between them what it was about
and nodded. So much of it was destiny it seems.
That was no dream she had, not that she dreamed
a photograph of me. I just was there and he was gone
and home was where the Bible was and her tall Papa.
They marked it down in Genesis, and I was there.
After we became companions in that country place,
she never cried again. We layered out to learn it all.
The word I learned – Em er gen see – became my guide
and later she was bride of one from marshes by the sea –
Atlantic shores no more – just marshes and the grass
where salty air caused all to speak in broadly colored
nouns and prepositions. And all around were pines
and silky tails and claws that upt and downed.
At noons we rested after cleaning fields and opening
earth to bleach in suns and wash when rains came by.
The skies were ever hot, and food was not so often
perfect to the taste but eaten anyhow, not a waste.
I had a father somewhere lost to me but mapped
in memory for her, but she’d not take it out unfolded
or hold it if she did. She hid it all from me by what
she never brought to dinner. We would have said
if we had ever said, it didn’t matter. We were we
and three was not our number. Somewhere out there
things were there to fear, not here where we could see
there was to be a later on. And later on did come.
She married him from salty, marshy land,
he who spoke no word to write or sing.
He made his X in bible pages, lined and ruled,
and set about to be the man she’d one day know.
I called him by his name but he said, He’s her boy!
And we said we would get along and tried,
but kids do things that kids will do and some
of that is grownup testing as it comes along.
And then we moved and moved
from over here to there and back
to meet the grocer, feed the oven
fires and sometimes huddle in the cold.
The places back from later then to earlier
were same to same and names like
Metter, Sapelo and Jekyl Island aim
their barbs at me until I sleep.
And no brick and mortar schools said come
but often in the pines and wild oak trees
a teacher led us on a hunt for Easter Eggs
where consequences dragged along my feet.
Pecan trees and honeybees, with sugar cane
and creeks with banks and hooks for wary
meddlers cool the feet from cotton fields.
Tobacco sleds in ones and twos made do.
Then US Armies came and claimed my birth-
day and my name but gave me numbers so
I could not sleep at night, though no one told
my brave or not so self to think before I shot.
All the cold of winters rolled in one could spit
the icy days of then and warm I shall not be.
But waiting near the tall iron gates was one
who caught and totaled all the silvered parts of me.
The days and nights to follow seasoned us until
I scarcely know from day to day that which is me,
but she does know and she will tell you when
the time is right for journeys such as mine to end.
(Stay Tuned)
I Was Not There When I Was Born
I was not there when I was born
but Mother says it went OK.
Her sister – older – gave thumbs up.
The two of them came by to clean
and sort some well-used swaddling clothes.
I finally got there after three –
They stayed up then ‘til early sun
to see if I could stick around
for breakfast and my game of one
or hang about, or call the docs.
Two sleepless shifts and I was fine
with Mother and my Auntie there.
They told grandmother after noon
who’d thought it was the stomach flu,
who brought in wood and set a place
and there I stayed for several days.
In all those days that passed between
nobody mentioned him to me.
– Charles Brady
