The sun sinks in a blue sky.
The way the pale, orange glow it’s kind enough to leave in its wake shines through the trees reminds me of the last embers of a campfire on a creek bank.
It’s the last light of a long day in South Alabama, and I’m on the front porch to watch it fade into darkness.
I’m not alone.
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This poem filled with pairs proved easy to write,
after I saw what I saw last night.
I watched a dad sit down in a chair,
and hold his two daughters, who sat with him there.
One of the girls held onto a book,
but dad opened it up and all three took a look.
It wasn’t just any old story or fable,
On that pair of pages, laid flat on a table.
This wasn’t a tale of planes or a park,
but the story of Noah, and a boat called an ark.
There were on those pages a few things to find,
Among all of the animals, two of a kind.
A hammer, a saw, a ruler for size,
all spied by the gazes from three pairs of eyes.
They found everything on the floating zoo,
which the animals boarded, two by two.
I know all of those pairs surely caused some congestion,
but still — I can’t help it — I have a question.
Answer me this, or I’ll never know,
why did this guy show blueprints to a hippo?
When the story was finished, goodnights were said,
then mom and dad put the children to bed.
When it comes to kids, that pair surely wins,
For they have a young son, and their daughters are twins.
I pushed my lawn chair into the sand and sat.
I was part of a small crowd, which had gathered on the beach to witness the aftermath of a seldom-seen spectacle of nature.
The crowd included several small girls, who giggled as they flipped through pamphlets and stared with wide-eyed wonder at a little indention on the shore of the Gulf of Mexico.
The spot was the only visible sign of sea turtle nest No. 20, which had hatched a few days earlier.
While the crowd watched, trained volunteers dug into the sand below the spot until they reached the chamber of the nest.
They lifted unhatched eggs, broken eggshells and one dead hatchling from the chamber to be recorded before they buried them again.
All of this amazed the group of small girls, and I heard one of them say they’d seen history.
I smiled and thought about how amazed they’d be if they were ever around when one of those nests hatched.
I saw a sea turtle nest hatch once.
It was something I never knew I needed to see, and something I’ll never forget. Continue reading →
When I was a boy, I had a lot of pets.
They just didn’t seem to want to stick around.
This is a place where some days seem to feature all four seasons, and others offer only wet heat.
Days like today, when the breeze is just gentle enough to rustle the oak leaves, are meant for front porches and rocking chairs. Continue reading →
A few years ago, at Christmastime, Daddy and I hit the road.
We decided we’d make the trip to a place called Jackson Lake Island, for no other reasons than we had time, we wanted to go see the place and we’d pass a Red Robin on the way. Continue reading →
This story begins in a pool hall and ends in a goat pen.
The middle is quite messy. Continue reading →
I grew up in a chicken house.
I don’t mean literally, of course, though when the wind is right I can smell five of them.
What I mean is, when I was a kid, I had it made. Continue reading →
