An Irrelevant Rant of an Ambigious Old Man...

GENERATION 11

The sleepless night and dreariness of the morning fog sets the stage for the retrieval of my gold plated shovel and embark upon a walkabout on the forsaken farm land of my family’s hierarchy in search of skeletons.   There are many skeletons some with long, and some with not so long sordid past, I know because I helped bury some of them.   There is even a pit where the farm animal was buried.  If that old mule skeleton could speak it would lay to rest the Idiocracy of an old man struggling against his personal demons allowing him to free the souls he has held prisoner.   Maybe I should give it a voice.  Skeletons are the remains of things we bury and hope they never reappear.   Skeletons are the stuff that ghosts are made of and ghosts are the things that haunts us.  But we don't believe in ghost.

There is a sadness that permeates this old homeplace, the subtil sounds of death and decay surround me.  I walk the creek banks and the overgrown trails and all I find is ghosts.  The Choctaws are gone, the slave owners and the land grabbers have followed the same path.  All of the old warriors are long gone and there is nothing left but memories, oh yes there are the skeletons.  These skeletons will always remind me of the wars that were fought.  Stupid wars, wars with no winners, dumb wars, like the ancient feuds that  play themselves out over the centuries  and  no one could remember why.   Brothers against brothers, the shredded souls the wasted lives, for what there is no reason.  Then one morning we wake up and find that what we dreamed of will never be and our life will never be the same.  Ashes to ashes, dust to dust so goes our dream.

   

As I began to dig and stand ready to proclaim my find, I think of Maya Angelou who wrote a poem, “I know why the caged bird sings”  and from the darkest moments of my tortured soul I scream, “I never heard the blackbird sing.”  Then with solemn respect to those who are standing I replace the earth in the hole I dug.  And as a reminder to those who pass this way I leave a marker that simply says, “I know why”,  I know why the old woman cried, because I wiped her tears, I know why I never heard the Blackbird sing and I know why the young warrior died.