The "Creek Path" wasn't a path in the way people in Millersville would understand it. It wasn't groomed or paved, and if you followed it for more than twenty yards, you’d likely end up with a boot full of mud and a face full of spiderwebs. It was a winding, stubborn trail that hugged the water where the willow trees leaned so low they looked like they were trying to drink the creek dry. Folks said the Creek Path was the original "Main Street" of Walnut Bend, back before the gravel road was cut and before Earl’s grandfather built the store. It was where the women did the washing and the men traded pelts. Now, it was just a place where the kids went to hide from their chores and where the shadows seemed to stay a little longer than they did anywhere else. One humid Tuesday, when the air felt like a wet wool blanket, I found myself in the back of Earl’s store. Earl had asked me to help him move some of those heavy bread crates because his "bad hip was acti...
THIRD MOVEMENT REMEMBERING SONG TWELVE MEMORIAL DAY II Walking farther North, leaving even trees behind no arching limbs against this white-empty sky the sun rises above the horizon but a few hours then sinks into night again into deep cold that rakes the flesh like fire Here’s a long night to be sure – an endless night with no time yet for sleep I watch shards of ice rise to the dark surface of a winter lake fed by an underground river that flows below mountain peaks crushed silver under moon Walking by myself, I listen to the stories I have left behind good stories that I tell myself – the ones I’ve never told another – not even once – good stories that I am re-membering about the One who has always been here, the un-named One -- now named Here, walking in this longest night, I cannot tell if the stars are lights above me or fires below I am ice-cracking splinters into shards and I am jubilant in the breaking Mapping to the center dead-reckoning...