February 23rd 9:10 pm -
Singing into the barn the other morning,
Yonder come a Miss Rosie
How in the world do you know?
Well I knows her by her apron, by the dress she wore,
Umbrella on her shoulder, piece of paper in her hand,
I’m going to ask the governor to turn a loose my man
The little chorus of chickens, I could almost hear them ringing in behind,
Let the midnight special shine it’s light on me,
The horse out to her pasture and walking the field hunting for marbles or anything, but nothing,
The world increasing in birdsong and every day more green, the walking path winding and bright, cardinals still red birds in the brown branches of the pecan but the privet is sure-enough coming home from out of the soil,
Thinking I’d drink this well water for the rest of my life,
Went to sleep with the ashes on my forehead last night hoping it’d change my dreams,
Slept hard, dreamless, the sun up earlier, thinly angling through my kitchen window,
stories on the line, silence, too, climbing hills and crossing creeks before 8 am,
Didn’t turn the fan on today but thought about it,
Burned things in the pit and the smoke curled all around,
rabbits, rabbits, rabbits,
Wompus steady sleeping,
Looking at all of the paintings for the show and wondering why I insist on putting hearts on the mules for everyone to see, maybe to remind us that they are there, beating, pounding, loving, sacred,
we forget the things we do not see, the way you seem so far from me, the way spring looked like it’d never come again, never lived to start off with,
In service he said, may you know the shape of God’s love in how you give and receive it,
he said, it is no great mystery,
But it is, for someone who quit praying so long ago,
The red box said, please do not ask to borrow my tools, it’s how I make my living,
And I been persistent in thinking about it,
What is missing, what’s been taken, that I been the way I been?
Please do not ask to borrow my heart, it’s how I make my living.
but i would rather lend it out than keep it to myself always,
a cat to the sun, roots to the rain,
Traveling through this world, kinfolks way back up in the mountains, some past the Piedmont, some across the sea,
There, here, the stories surround,
There the kinfolks made up the soil, made up the land, clearing it back, in the clouds smiling,
in church she read out, sorrowful yet always rejoicing, as having nothing, yet possessing everything.
the vision of a cloud leading us in the day, fire in the sky above at night,
crowned with mercy and loving-kindness,
Birdsong increasing,
Every day more green.
Let the midnight special shine it’s light on me, shine it’s ever-loving light on me
Today long and warm and easy and tearing down elderberry and trying to clear out some trash here and there, and picking up sticks and currying the horse, in the mud and new grass, electric green, glad with green,
The Bradford pear trees the same bright green, studying everything, seems like just yesterday shyly picking pecans next to the road,
I went to the nation, to the territory, to tell them about the girl I love,
Let the midnight special…