St. Stephen's Church, VA

I forget the name of the road, I will make note tomorrow when we return. But, I don't forget the people who live on the same road. One good man has a country road off the hard road. He has all the makings of a Southern Gentleman. He has the ripe age, the weathered hands, the junk spread all about the yard. And, the traditional landscaping of boxwoods, magnolia, cedar and the groundcovers that creep along the side of the house and get under the wood planks and shingles. The plants are finding their way into the house. I don't contest their want to be inside. I was invited inside and had the most aromatic smells walk up my nostrils. Home cooking, as my friend stood in the doorway in the kitchen and motioned me in. I smelled the greens and chicken. The house interior made me skip backwards a few decades to my grandmother's house on Cabbage Hill in Lancaster City. The same foods weren't cooking but the hospitality was equivalent. My friend had few words. I was thankful to find him with a smile and an appetite. He said, "You're a long way from home, ain't ya boy?"

"The Oracle"... I found myself wanting to be in his shoes, his Rockports. I wanted to be on the front yard with the grass against my feet, with the snakes and me playing with the same sun. I don't care who's out here, friend or foe, the sun has me lifted. For those moments, we are a unity. All of our fit bits stopped calculating, they went retro and found themselves under the hammer. That doesn't mean I can't run in circles and count the steps on my own hands and fingers.

My cue was laid onto the doormat, to hit the hardroad. First stop was for a cup of coffee at the 7 Eleven next to Kings Dominion. Which, of course, is beside the old Doswell truck stop. A stop that probably raged at a fever pace in the eighties and early ninties. But with other comforts cropping into the picture for blurry eyed truckers, the old dinosaur truck stop grinded to a halt. It looks like their might be an investor trying to breathe new life.

So, now I'm on my back patio and listening to the hum of the cars travelling on 222. But, inside those hums of the tires against the asphalt, is playing a symphony of birds in these ragged trees that line my back fence. Buried in those branches and dug into those bushwacks, the little finches and robins are making their way in the world today. They aren't concerned by Becky with the good hair, but they do have an intensity for living that is worth mimicking. It's kinda comical how they all hush up and quiet down at the same time when the dusk darkens in the deep of the horizon. They know, they are the clock. I count my seconds according to their chirps, I know the weather, also, through their language. I'm trying to understand it more, the language. It's precious and sweet, it's Sade's lullaby. And don't get me up on fragrances that coincide in the spring time with the beauty of the bird songs. Lilacs and Magnolia flowers fill in the gaps to my sense of time and location. I planted some in my yard, my way of bringing Virginia to Pennsylvania.