A low land among the hills is called a hollow. Those countless hollows (hollers) full of lightning bugs that illuminate in a way only be compared to the stars in a moonless sky, but they’re still very different. An iridescent green hue belonging only to the wings of those tiny lives fanning their own breeze thousands at a time. If you listen close you can hear it. Owls that hoot a call into the darkness across a dewy and damp landscape echoing off of trees and trickling creek beds. The smell of hay, sweet and dusty puffs amongst a gentle wind with the voice of pine needles and sweet gum leaves.
Only a winding dirt road away from a quiet serenity unlike any other. Dusty drives against the chorus of crickets on a moonlit night. A simplicity that we would do well to remember as the bark of the loblolly pine does. Watching the winds and the rains ebb and flow throughout the languid days and humid nights. It was always meant to be home.
To sing with a slang the songs passed down from a place that you can’t remember, but the voices who taught them to you are always in sharp focus within your mind. Songs of divinity and heart shaped hoof prints in a dry hardwood bottom where the crawdads wait. They echo in each heartbeat while the blood beats its rat-a-tat against the veins of your body.
Never too busy to slow down and tell a story. Never far from a stranger who will listen and love you even when they don’t know you. A slow tongue with the taste of sweet tea and sorghum syrup quantifies a life that was sewn in a field full of hard work and hopes and dreams. Sweat on a brow and a cool breeze through a porch swing are hand in hand as necessary friends. Slowing down garners appreciation.
In the morning when the sun is barely risen, the smell of cat head biscuits made with buttermilk and love, and a glass pot of black coffee make up the symphony of awakening. Birdsong echoes through single pane windows like a gentle alarm made just for you. The grass wets your shoes when you walk through it and greet the sun rising over the trees.
Ancient tradition hemmed up within the cuff of a well worn pair of jeans. Laughter in every freckle and crooked toothed grin. The rooster and the crow share the comedy of life with you. Listen to them chuckle.
The feel of the breeze through your hair when blown above the cab of a pickup truck while you ride in the bed is different than any other and you know it. The taste of Coca-Cola is different when its in a glass bottle out of the bottom of a cavern of ice. These things are incontestable truths and cannot be argued. Just as the cold of creek water can soothe a hot summer day better than any air conditioning, and the taste of a tomato is always better when you pick it right off of a vine.
Crabapple feasts for cows in a pasture. Their sweet faces and infinite eyes know the secrets of true contentment. When you see the hawk, stationary on the breeze, you remember to be still and listen. That lesson is right there all along. Squirrels in the trees teach you how to make yourself known when you need to be. Whether they’re laughing or yelling is yet to be determined.
Ripples on the surface of a pond seem to go on forever, whether they are from a stone skipped sideways or a fish hunting bugs on the surface. You can watch them grow from tiny ringlets to circles the size of Saturn if you’re patient enough to to watch them. Pick a blossom from a honeysuckle and taste its sweet nectar and it will buy you the time.
Windows open against the cool night air, you can sleep among the din of crickets and frogs as they sing among the starlight. Dreams of running through pastures and swinging from rope swings await you if your mind is content. And why shouldn’t it be?
Time stands still along these dusty roads and humid days. Your heart has always been here.
One response to “Southern Hymnal”
So vivid. I can hear it, smell it.