VIRGINIA: 1976
SAGA OF A TEXAN’S GROWING LOVE



COLONIAL DOWNS


This is Virginia:
Musty green rolling rises
fall off gently toward the sunset.
White washed board fences roller coaster
over the hills and on to the horizon.
Virgin wood, 200 feet tall,
shades the horizon and the end of the fences.
Manicured ponds ringed by cedars
stand guard over grazing thoroughbreds:
dainty, pinch nosed, high strung steeds
not good for:
Pony Express
gunfighters
wagon trains
Indian raids
Cavalry charges
Rocky Mountain crossings.


But nothing looks better
than one of these
high stepping
sideways dancing
arched necked breeds
covered in a blanket of roses and ribbons
proudly parading around the track
every Spring.


Early Morning Rain


I feel the heart beat of the earth
pound out a steady rhythm beneath my naked feet,
telling me exactly how the planet feels
as she touches me.
I am grounded in the morning's dew:
negative charges
seeking ever seeking
the positive charge to consulate and calm the storms.
The driving call for release is evidence of life within.
Clouds from everywhere gather round
to grasp the fiery spire of energy.
The link is complete.
The strike lights the horizon,
I count the seconds to the thunder's wild groaning:
the sound of buffalo stampeding across the plains of Kansas
shaking up earth's circulation.
Slowly rain begins to fall, turning into torrents,
rushing toward arroyos long parched and dry.


When the earth ceases to send these charges
the clouds no longer gather.
Then all who view us from afar will know
the planet has surely died
and with her all who rode her
through the galaxy of skies.


So it is with marriage,
friends, all manner of art,
work and desire:
without the powerful surging spire
seeking, always seeking;
the clouds of communion
have no reason to gather.


Early now, before the dawn,
I sit here listening to the rain fall
onto the skylights of my sheltering cave.
I know I am alive because I think of you
and it is raining.


WARM NOVEMBER RAIN:


Soft spoken
silting
sifting
through the screen,
still open.
Summer rain
back again
giving mistletoe
and holly
one last kiss in late November.


Limbs long barren
graceful lines
etching winter into the clouds
barely move in the still breeze,
while silver ribbons slither down
planting summer memories
into the mulching leaves.


No promises are made.
The trees no not mind
one last lover’s kiss
before being left behind.
Fantasies and dreams fulfilled
with gentle kisses
summer bold.



FEBRUARY RAIN


Soft on the tin roof
sliding down the screen
leaving traces on the sills
smelling of spring
slightly warm.



FULL CIRCLE


Today the streets are gold and red.
All the leaves falling into bed
sleeping soundly under my feet
as I pass by.


Limbs, strong and sure
stretch for the sun
shed of the veil through
which I run.
Naked they endure winter's icy blast
as I pass by.


Frost covered,
draped in snow,
through sleet and wind,
the thin quivering branches
patiently await
spring’s sweet kiss
as I pass by.


Birthed unashamed amid flower and seed,
each pale green leaf to summer will lead
until once again
my feet they greet
as I pass by.



TICKETS TO WINTER


There they come
everywhere
at my feet
in the air:
red
yellow
green
brown
falling down
blowing round
calling me to winter.



FIRST SNOW: October, 1976


Gossamer blanket
spread loose on the grass
doing its best to peep through
trying to stay green under you.


LAST SNOW: March, 1977

Hey, Clouds,
Hey up there, don’t you know
Spring came two days ago.
Why are you snowing on my iris heads?
Why are you hiding my flower beds?
Go home
North Wind
Let the South Wind Blow.



DECEMBER IN THE PARK

White ducks,
brown ducks,
Mallards passing through,
single file
behind each other
they do their pigeon-toed
quack-dance
to delight children
who squeal and run
to mother.
Then from behind
the protective cover
of her coat and skirt
they throw the molded bread.



U.S. HIGHWAY Route 1 & 301
OFF WORK


I drive across the Robert E. Lee Bridge
twice on my way home each day;
once to view the city
once to view the river.
My HELLO beeper off at last:
driving un-logged miles
on un-accounted time.
1.2 miles I watch the city.
1.2 miles I watch the river.
By the time I’ve driven the 2.4 miles,
my mind lets me take my body home.
Cheaper than Patron Tequila
or Psychiatric Therapy.



October 13, 1988: 6:00 am


The midnight black cat stalked down the hill
through the azaleas turned to fall
patiently awaiting his morning catch to stall.
All those alerted will shriek and scream,
erratically flying near,
unable to aid the dying call they hear.



TEXAS CHARLIE MOVES TO VIRGINIA
February, 12, 1988


Big city Dallas downtown
fat red-stripped cat
sat hunkered down
lookin’ round
astounded by
five squirrels
seven doves
two red birds
one blue jay
a woodpecker
and his missus.
Close clipped claws
on un-callused paws
will grow to know
Douglas Fir,
poplar,
sycamore,
Dutch elm,
and holly trees.
Big city Charlie
has moved to the country,
found right in the middle of the city.



VIRGINIA HIGHWAY 81 SOUTH


I saw a hawk fly through the trees.
How did he do it at that speed
and with such ease
negotiate the tangled corridor?
His wings have eyes,
I thought at last.
That’s how he maintains a precision path.
I looked down at my arms and knew
I needed more eyes
yes, more eyes,
not wings to ascend.



Dancing Arab


I am an Arabian Stallion
having night dreams in Virginia.
I have never seen the Persian desert
nor an Arabian sheik,
or felt the heel of some powerful Shaw
spur hard on my flanks for speed.
My tasseled mane is forever clean.
Velvet shawls hide my silken coat.
I never sweat or smell.
My master cannot think outside
the white board fences of Goochland County
spread across the spring green rolling hills
stretching toward the sunset.
When night falls and I am alone in my stall,
I dream of Arabian Knights.



City View


In the winter
down at the end of my street
I see the city,
complete.
I watch cars and trucks slowly cross
the James
on bridges
Manchester and Lee.
From my window
I hear melted
Shenandoah snow flow
class four rapids toward the bay,
roaring and tumbling
every March, April, and May.
In the fall
I watch the harvest moon rise
over the Federal Reserve Bank
when spooks and goblins come to call.
In the spring
Ringling Brother’s Barnum & Bailey Circus,
The Greatest Show On Earth,
parks on the tracks out my back door.
I shut my eyes
and smell the hay
of elephants and chimpanzees.
I hear the trainload breathe.
My greatest joy is winter,
allowing me to see
clean through the branches
of a million Virginia trees,
straight out across the river,
into the back door of the city.
What a pity for those
who left the urban cluster for suburbs,
where the name implies:
less than the very best.

Dear Little Boy in Texas,


Down below my house
next to the river
on the C&S Tracks
there sits a complete circus.
The whole entire thing
lined up in a row.
I shut my eyes and see
tigers,
trapeze,
chimpanzees,
girls in tights,
men in flight,
children dreaming into the night,
clutching ticket stubs and memories.
One day we will go.
Love,
Little Girl in Virginia


BLIZZARDS & NUCLEAR ICE CREAM


My son David and family moved from Massacheuttes to Virginia on Labor Day of 2005. I told him welcome home from Blizzard World. You will never get 35 inches of snow again in Virginia unless Global Warming is another way to say Global Cooling.


The most Virginia snow I ever saw was 18 inches in February 1983. That was the weekend I moved one block down the street to yet another divorcee apartment on Franklin Street. Slogging and sobbing through snow up to my short legged ass hauling clothes, Junior level university books, the family silver service, my ancient Underwood Typewriter, and my Guild acustic guitar. I remember that blizzard well: un-predicted, un-expected, just got up one morning and there was snow; tons of it. The next ‘blizzard’ was 10 inches in 1985. I lived in the second flat on Lombardy and hauled coal in an old lady fan cart from the Lombardy Market a block away while pretending to be The Little Match Girl all the way home. Pretending always smoothes out the rough edges of hard times.


The first winter Christmas, after the seven of us moved from Texas to Virginia, we had 8 inches of snow. Before that melted we had 4 more inches and before that melted we have about 6 more inches. This was to be remembered as the extended blizzard of 1976. This was the year I learned how to measure exactly how much oil was in the tank out back (any old skinny tree limb will do it). I also remembered that in Texas the smell of that much oil meant something somewhere was about to explode. But in Virginia it was simply known as houses firing up the oil furnace. This was the winter I learned that Virginia was definitely different and The Magnificent Seven of us needed what is known as Winter Clothing found in the Lands End Catalogue. During the winter Olympics in Sweden, one native said over international TV, there is no such thing as cold weather, just bad clothing, and she walked away in her solid fur parka. Our little transferred family had closets filled with bad clothing. That was the same winter the snow stayed on the ground in the north corner of the old house built in 1912 until May. Texicans were wearing shorts and had been doing so since late March.


In Texas snow would appear out of nowhere and dust the suburban carpet grass with an inch or two at most. Schools would be cancelled. The airwaves would announce the closings of government, schools and churches on running TV ticker tape under Mister Pepper Mint and Captain Kangaroo. The children would run out of the house with plastic Wonder Bread bags over there Converse Tennis Shoes and hurriedly roll the snow into all shapes of things. Mind you, the Texas sun had hardly pulled itself out of the horizon into the sky. We were a very traditional family and the traditional yellow green carpet grass snow man was in the front yard. Sometimes we would have to requisition snow from a less energetic obliging neighbor. The snowmen in Texas always looked like they had a severe case of varicose veins. No matter what anyone in the city of Richardson, Texas built, be it houses, castles, sculptures, or traditional carrot nosed snowpersons, the snow sculpture was always covered in rolled up urine green carpet grass.


I would wait until the congealed Dallas smog was surely snowed out of the air. With my Revere Ware pan in hand, I would skim off the top layer of snow carefully avoiding the lower smog layer and the dying carpet grass and run in to make snow ice-cream before it melted in the pan. In winter I always kept a can or two of Carnation Evaporated Milk in the pantry just in case it might snow in our part of Texas.


I learned how to make snow ice cream during the war torn ‘40s in Los Alamos, New Mexico. Mama would run out of the house with a turkey roaster and scoop up Nuclear Snow and make the very best Toxic Cream that a kid could ever ask for. No one knew. America was either un-informed or stupid. Somehow stupid is at the time you do it: Un-informed is what it truly was when you become smarter and know better. Of course, it could be the other way around; depending on your hind sight educational take on happenings. But, for certain, the snows of Los Alamos made absolutely wonderful ice-cream.


Well, that is about it for snow ice cream and blizzards.


Except, Christmas Eve, last year, 2004, for the first time in 87 years, Houston had Christmas Snow. It came at 10pm and was totally gone by 9am. Victoria, on The Gulf, had 12 inches. South Texas made world wide news. We were the only state in the United States that had fresh fallen snow on Christmas Eve. I went outside in my totally new bright cardinal red silk Neiman Marcus Christmas robe carrying that same small Revere Ware pan and scooped up what I could gather of the snow, carpet grass and smog excluded. I took the just in case can of Carnation Evaporated Milk and some Cayman Island Vanilla out of the cupboard and happily concocted up the beginnings of what long ago became Texas Blue Bell Ice Cream. Paul and I sat under our geriatric Christmas tree and once again I tasted wonderful snow ice-cream straight from God just so we could own once again a Norman Rockwell memory of childhood and snow ice cream. We need to pretend those memories during these hard times of our world without peace on earth and good will toward men.


Merry Christmas, Gaylee and Paul, 2005



©1998-2005 Gaylee Humbert Malone