Weekend Getaway

I am homesick. I find myself going backward into childhood. I am at my grandparents' farm; I am alone in the middle of a giant field (I have crossed a small stream to arrive at this field, and I have passed by a a little hidden graveyard of rusting appliances and old farm vehicles). The field has a steep slope to it, and is it full of spring grass and wildflowers. I am alone and I feel totally at peace.

I am homesick for this place because on my way to a weekend trip to the Smoky Mountains in Tennessee, I drove through Kentucky, my home state. I drove past farms similar to my grandparents'. I saw abandoned farmhouses with great stone chimneys and weathered gray walls, like lonely ghosts rising in empty fields. I saw gentle creeks and rivers and lakes; I saw cattle grazing, and barns and silos. At each sight, I felt a sad pang in my chest. The place called me home, although it is no longer my home.

There is something about the country that comforts me. There is something about wide open spaces and solitude and the sound of rushing streams that suggests to me that I am whole and right. As I type this, I can feel the walls of my house falling away and I see the wide night covering wide expanses of green land like a dark embrace. And there is nothing around me but space and I hear nothing but the creature sounds of night.

My children enjoyed the mountains. Of all we did, they liked eating fried chicken at the side of a creek, and later throwing rocks into that same stream the best. We threw and threw rocks into that stream, and for some reason the act never grew old. Ethan's nails had thin black moons of dirt underneath them from digging in the dirt.

My country children. Thank the good Lord that the country is blossoming in them.


The creek speaks
In sounds gentle
Clear water
Clapping hands
Over boulders
Rocks pebbles
Rubbing them
Smooth as the
Underbelly of
A salamander
And my child
Fat dimpled
Hands digging
Into sand finding
A stone small
Enough to fit
Into his palm
He lets it go
Falls into
Crystal water
To rest only
For a little while
Until the creek
Cradles it again
Turning it over
And over
Carrying it
downstream