Folktales On Postcards # 4

“Saint Of Graves”

I dream once more behind the homestead to hide, lost in fact as all maps in my mind comes at cost. Weathered and thirteen, a child of the cold, even at time’s hottest threat. I am pleased to come out, show myself to most, when mama sings and slaps her spoons to thighs, playin’ blue bird’s song from daddy’s wooden juke. A monolith of ancient umber, with insect’s eyes, castin’ waves of Sodom, yet we don’t shrink and shred as salt to the tune.

Not once, like the pulpit man, who would bellow about in a fit of swelter, a midsummer visit beneath forenoon thunder. Red as apples, he danced like a devil too. And damned to dawn I know better.

Since the pulpit man set up tent for worship, the child thief of Rabbit Hash took our town’s lambs with precision.

Knowin’, but not saying, what he is. Watchin’, and prayin’ to nothin’, as he does.

Well, me and “O”, my soul’s waggin’ tail! My dog. A beast, fetched up to the steps of our porch seven seasons ago. My O, brimmin’ with youth and potent. A bold storm of cloudy fur, cradlin’ emerald eyes and fangs of light, which O never bears.

Except when the pulpit man pays us visit.

Emboldened by our awe, all that was daddy’s, and is mama’s and our’s, is O’s to safeguard. Our verdant plot, his spot to fortify. Forbearin’, a dog not merely gentle and loving, as even the wild woman miles down trail, with her schoolin’ and walls of shelves offerin’ endless pages of worlds worth runnin’ like hell to, calls sweet O some incantation of the spiritess, Gente’l and the sleeping god, Love.

Two coins of two sides.

Old magic. Fortold in the wild woman’s book, inked in type as red as blood that one can smell life between its fadin’ spine and papery skin.

Of course if you believe such tales?

The woman and I laughed then, but I sense truth afloat, deep in my gut’s well at least this-

O, does not just love.

Love contains O, you see.

Since O staked his service to our name, not one of mama’s chickens or steer been lost or taken, all rabbits and deer with their levy, granted safe passage across our property’s sward to their warrens and ranges. O, loves all as is good, and I swear by mamas’ favorite yearling, The Moonbow, I once sat witness to our O, bearin’ baby squirrels, fallen from sapling and injured between his shoulders, sleepin’ still and sound til strength shown again.

My O and his heart.

Like the school house’s book, I read twenty times plus another, maybe two. Sumthin’ like lessons from the one book’s judgment upon Gamorrah. It’s desert priest a prelude to a clay crowned Nero, and the smell of sulphur and locust.

Soured Hell I read aloud to you.

Remember revelation, little sister? You recall him in the book’s pictures, now?

The scaley tail tucked from focus?

The silver fiddle and spiral bow hangin’ like Christ’s last breath to his left side?

Pupils as pools of oil?

A burnt Rome or maybe the countryside, coolin’ through nightly chill as cats weep proper, them little knights, my darlin’s, forgin’ whisper’s dew. Of yore and white whiskers, tappin’ paws to rhythm around frost’s breath of morn, far from our timeworn mimicry of neighbors who know nothin’ of empty bellies.

Harder still to put out any slimmer supper than last licks of second hand’s stew. Skin and bone, the belabored meows zizzin’ in sleep by a buried giant’s drowse-my daddy, now gone from this earth, and his pets too close to ghosts themselves.

I’m reminded of pulpit man’s sermon on envy, Eden’s garden, and the speaking serpent.

Ha!

To be as God?

Just add an “O” and then God, at last, becomes good.

Yet O too is a coin of two sides as those wild spirits buried in graves of text and dust.

A child’s worst dream. Pulpit man standing, callin’ out names in a field of weeds. Abandoned, holdin’ a dozen kit. Runt trophies from a godless hunt, ol pulpit’s jealous need for mama’s psalms and her youngest babe.

You, lil sister.

At least that’s what the teacher lady told me. Eyes and hands as such, closed lids and open palms. She blinked to tell me so, as her voice would not dare leave that throatly cave. Her mammoth, muted fear, cowered and hidin’ behind a silent, swollen tongue.

Yet I believe I read her thoughts.

Teacher lady spoke to a revival on a recent Sunday, senses lit, inhalin’ his true scent, unsmoked through pulpit’s man’s pores. From her seat to his stage she saw through his slick sham. Ruptured his calm choreography. Crippled his charade, and set his fury’s aim.

Pulpit man knew she was awake, castin’ her out of his house of cards, that dark, old church. Pulpit wayfairin’ religion to twist and take our children. He blamed teacher lady’s exit on sin and the color of her skin to a beguiled congregation. Boiled spite not seen since the morning star fell to earth’s infant floor at our Saviour’s behest.

Red as July’s temper.

As big as an ol’ Kentucky sun, reflectin’ in pulpit man’s eyes.

Pulpit returns late one evening perched on our porch like a plottin’ rook on the railin’. Combin’ his hair with stained fingers, spreadin’ grease, a grin of chipped, gold teeth. Starin’ up mama’s body like a surveyor scoutin’ out her boundaries, he asks to be invited into our home, again.

O, chained to his house for the length of pulpit’s stay. First light of fangs bore backed by barks of madness. Pulpit man locks eyes with my dog, confined, and winks. O, challenges his house, and wood splinters and hinges startle.

Humility?

Ha!

Oh how come hell or knee high he would not enter the threshold if we held our manners. But a man of “God” need not fret.

Come in, man of God, mama almost sings by our sink.

From the thick press of this humidity.

Man of the flesh and the pulpit.

To waft past so wicked, as he sits in daddy’s chair, warped knuckles removin’ buckeled, black boots. Timeless, made of hide unknown and craft unmarked. Leather and stitch too clean. Unsettled shoes, too large for the man, betrayin’ Godly form and a pilgrim’s labor. Feet of filth, half hoof and part paw, deformed as dewclaw, and among little chants of brimstone in his bones, the rattle betrays the smile.

But pulpit, I trimmed the threads of my sweet O’s collar. For you, pulpit, my beast is comin’. There’s not much time, O, hurry.

And mama’s olive eyes see only his holy invention. Intentions shadowed, ‘ol pulpit scans the room, and calls out for you, baby sister. He moves like wind. Strikin’ like the birth of violence. Mama’s head falls to her chest. Blood spills and spreads. Mama’s life paintin’ her white linens the color of the one book’s punishment. Crimson fillin’ crystal eyes wide open, and closed breath risen with Christ’s absence.

I grab you up lil sister like we playin’ monsters once more, and we run. Pulpit man behind, a bootless jackal’s gallop, savorin’ the advantage villains have over lost babes destined for forests at nightfall.

O, pullin’ goddamed hell itself behind him. Gods and spirits, and their mischief could not stop his wim. Like the teacher lady’s stories, O, reborn my Ragnorok, a wild, instrument of wails and glory.

O, breaks his chains to battle a killer.

We try, but we fall baby sister, from grace to ground. The pulpit man stops but a foot from us, our pit, he all smile and spittle. Pulpit steps forward to save us into his last sermon, but turns to face our vengeance for we and mama. O, pulls down hell’s son to his knees, stares into pulpit’s eyes, his throat O’s feast.

Pulpit struggles and battles and stabs. Cries out to match O’s yelps but not his fire. For every punch and struggle, O, closes his jaws down harder. The light in pulpit man lingers no longer. The Rabbit Hash horror and his reign, over.

Cry no more, sweet sibling. My lightning bolt. Me, your thunder. The bad dreams are over. We will wash a stranger’s blood from our souls once this hole is dug deep under the dark of daddy’s trees. O, standin’ watch as if pulpit man might ressurect from the underworld while we dig and least suspect. O, lookin’ after us, as blue birds fly in close. O, stares curious, but gently. His muzzle covered as grissle and gore, last offerin’ to hopefully, God.

O and I, we with the seer’s eyes.

Such gifts, the eyes of Gabriel!

We knew.

Forgotten angels and mighty, little soldiers among dirt and heat. We, beaten down beasts of God, we know.

I finish as fog rolls in, the daybreak tide, and final clods of soil erase a wretched body feedin’ a fastened grave. The morning dawn wakes again to learn another sin of the southern night, swearin’ once more, to keep its secrets.