Whenever I look up at the night sky, I think of my dad. Sometimes, not in any intelligible way. Sometimes, I'll just sort of feel that part of my spine stirring, and I'll know that somewhere without words, I am thinking of my dad.
When I was young, he worked the hoot owl shift in the coal mine. Mine # 52, U.S. Steel. He was a shift foreman. He wore a white hard hat that had a light on it. He came home with coal dust stuck in his blonde eyelashes.
He loved the night sky. Not a formally educated man, he always wanted to know more about them. Once he bought a set of Encyclopedia Brittanica and poured over the sections about the stars. Then he would take me out on summer nights and teach me what he had learned. How the clusters moved, how, if we had a telescope, we could see one that is behind another.
I have the stars paired with ligtening bugs, coal, and diamonds.
Lately I have missed the heavy perfume of the mountains. The deciduous trees in late August are as green as emeralds. Their gray bark breathes out a scent that is floral and masculine, and it sort of smells like Coco Chanel. In West Virginia, where I'm from, the trees far out number the people. They are sometimes much more enjoyable to be around - the way they catch the swifts, the swallows of wind as clean, fragrant air rushes over East River Mountain.
Every morning, in the winter, thick clouds pour down the mountain. They are the color of lavendar flowers mixed with snow.
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Makes me want to write poetry.
ReplyDeleteHi Colleen,
ReplyDeleteI often feel that way when I visit your writings! You were the inspiration for this piece, by the way!