MORE “CROWING”…

Some of my poetry (MORE CROWS, published by Border Press, 2008, www.borderpressbooks.com) and blogs are filled with allusions to crows, birds that most people abhor. My godfather, now deceased, once chided me for admiring them and thought I was in league with bad spirits because the sight of them diving in my backyard in Louisiana excited me. I’ve never been under attack by crows, but, recently, stories about several crow bombers have caused me to rethink my ideas of their intentions.

Yesterday, while I talked, via telephone, with my youngest daughter, Elizabeth, who lives in Palmdale, California, she stopped the conversation long enough to warn Joel, 7, about climbing a hill behind her home where crows were acting up. They had zeroed in on Joel’s small mixed breed, pug and Chihuahua dog named “Sugar” and were practicing deep dives to frighten the animal. Elizabeth said they had been attacking the dog for several days, and she feared Joel was their next target.

A few days later, my friend, The Rev. Dr. Susanna Metz, who has migrated to the UK to take a position as Vicar in Petrockstowe, Okehampton, Devon, e-mailed me that she had been awakened several times by “raucous crows this morning. They were screeching and banging on the window in the (to be) music room. They sounded like people banging on the door. Someone said if you put cut-out forms of a cat on the window, it will make them go away. OK…I know you’re all imagining what’s next! Yeah, of course I’ll try it. I’m afraid to open the windows as I’ll have them inside…”

Then there’s the story of a flock of crows living in Warwick, UK, that attacked cars, pulling off the windscreen wipers and scratching the paint jobs of several automobiles. After they finished this attack, they began attacking humans. A conservation officer has said that the crows became aggressive because they were nesting, and people came too close to their territory. The officer recommended that residents wear hats and leave no waste food lying about.

I suppose I should heed these cautionary tales and revise my thinking about crows, but I heard several of them cawing in the yard here at Sewanee, Tennessee this morning and chose to think that they were simply announcing a thunderstorm that has been threatening to happen for a week. Unfortunately, a few peals of thunder and darkened skies subsided within an hour, and my weather predictors have taken wing since their loud and mistaken announcement of rain.

The following poem will appear in a new book of my poetry entitled ALCHEMY to be published by Border Press next month. It was written during a stay at Table Rock, South Carolina last summer:

NO MESSAGES FROM THE CROWS

The savage birds scorn Table Rock,

a long-standing tower
stripped of branch and inviting green.
Perhaps the light is too extreme
above the unbroken rock,
they miss concealment and rubbish piles,
scenes of malice where they can haggle
and strut, their expressive tongues
now unable to stir the clear air,
this place free of litigation.
I miss the raucous voices,
their sleek coats glistening
in an incautious sky,
their songs raised,
the primitive incantations
of holy, unholy dark princes.

RIP VAN WINKLE SLEPT HERE…

During a whirlwind visit to New Iberia, Louisiana recently, we lunched with Mike Richard, owner of Rip Van Winkle Gardens at Jefferson Island near Delcambre, Louisiana.  He commissioned me to rewrite and update a book about Rip Van Winkle Gardens (formerly called Live Oak Gardens) which I had written back in 1991.

OWNER AND HORTICULTURIST, MICHAEL RICHARD

Mike has reworked the gardens and added a rookery for roseate spoonbills since I last visited the island, and he took us for a ride through the nursery section of the gardens and the rookery where we got a close look at these colorful birds nesting in the trees.  An entrepreneur, Mike owns 250 acres of a thriving nursery, a contracting company, and the Rip Van Winkle Gardens, which includes the Joseph Jefferson house, a treasured tourist attraction of south Louisiana.  He’s also a lively raconteur and host and kept up a running commentary about the island, the gardens, and the old timers who have lived on Jefferson Island for at least five decades. We sat on a glass-enclosed porch of Café Jefferson, which overlooks Lake Peigneur, safe from the 100-degree heat and humidity of a hot June day in south Louisiana, and I enjoyed chicken/sausage gumbo made from a dark roux, a salad, and a crème brulee cheesecake that did serious damage to a diet I’m pursuing.... but I appeased my sweet tooth.

NEW BOOK ON GARDENS COMING SOON

As he has sold out of the copies of the book I wrote about the gardens, Mike says he wants to answer the demand of tourists seeking a new book containing information about the Joseph Jefferson house, the island, and gardens.  I’ll research and add to the material used in the first volume and look forward to working in the Rip Van Winkle Gardens during the cooler months of October.

The Jefferson mansion, an imposing white house that sits on a high hill of Jefferson Island (once known as Orange Island), was built by Joseph Jefferson, the actor who portrayed Rip Van Winkle in 4500 stage performances.  Jefferson had searched for the place to build a house as a winter residence because he was a sun seeker … “thin and quickly chilled,” according to writer Francis Wilson.  Jefferson built the Louisiana mansion as his retreat between theatrical seasons.  He also owned homes at Buzzard’s Bay, Massachusetts, Hohokus, New Jersey, and other places he sought out for relaxation from a demanding acting career.  A hospitable man, he entertained notable visitors—actors, writers, even President Grover Cleveland, at his island home during the late 19^th century.

JEFFERSON ISLAND, NOT AN ISLAND

Although Jefferson Island is referred to as an “island,” this is a misnomer as the property contains mostly intermediate salt marsh and rock salt.  Jefferson’s imposing home sits atop a hill, a white frame, octagonal, two-story building (three levels, counting the cupola) with verandas on three sides and square columns connected by a balustrade of filigree wood on top.  In the center of the roof, a rectangular cupola containing four dormer windows, juts above oak treetops.  This third level of the home, the cupola, houses a studio room which served as the place where Jefferson often painted landscape art.  Light filtered in from a skylight in the ceiling, and Jefferson had a panoramic view of the countryside from this level. 

Visitors to Orange Island had to make the twelve-mile trip from New Iberia, which took five hours, to reach the handsome home, a combination of Moorish, Steamboat Gothic, French, and Southern plantation architectural styles.  My favorite room in the house is the elegant dining room of cathedral Gothic design.  The room has a carved beamed ceiling decorated with Moorish trim and has been refurbished with green silk wallpaper.  Like most of the rooms in the old mansion, it’s filled with light—throughout the house, diamond-shaped window panes let in light, creating an atmosphere of cheerfulness and hospitality.

JOE JEFFERSON HOUSE IN THE OLD DAYS

One of Jefferson’s innovations to the house was the creation of an air well from hallway ceiling to top floor that provided natural cooling.  Hot air escaped through the top of the well and pulled cool air down through the windows of rooms with 12-foot ceilings.  The mansion faced southeasterly to catch southeast winds which drifted into the long hall.  Twelve foot ceilings in all the rooms contributed to the cooling effect.  The 12 x 40 feet hall was flanked by “daytime” and “nighttime” rooms on either side.  Pickled cypress walls in the hall were painted by artists using the faux bois (false wood) process and resemble mahogany.  Jefferson also created a smoking room where wildlife paintings by A. Pope, Jr. decorated the walls and added a library (in 1991, this library contained a display of coins found on the island in 1923 and supported the idea that the pirate Jean Lafitte buried treasure on Jefferson island).  A back parlor boasted three misty scenes painted by Drysdale, the famous Louisiana painter.  Jefferson built a two-room cottage at the rear of the house where he slept because he harbored the superstition that if a man built a home late in life and slept in it, he would die within a year.  Jefferson was 41 when he built the home but the life expectancy of a man was 49 years during the 1800’s!  It is believed that Mrs. Jefferson visited him in the cottage.

This sketchy description is only the tip of the iceberg about the Joseph Jefferson home, and I didn’t tour the gardens while visiting the island, so there’s more to be told.  The book I’ll write in the Fall will give readers a more comprehensive view of this beautiful property.  Meanwhile, you can find guests sitting under slow-moving ceiling fans in white rockers on the long veranda of the Joe Jefferson mansion, perhaps chatting about the gardens they have strolled through and savoring the peaceful ambience of a home known for its hospitality and generous levels of light.

Photograph of dining room from LIVE OAK GARDENS written by Diane Moore,  Acadian House Publishing, Lafayette, Louisiana, 1991.

HOLDING THE NOTES…

When I returned to The Mountain from a brief trip to New Iberia, Louisiana, I found in my mailbox a copy of the newest book of poetry written by former Louisiana Poet Laureate Darrell Bourque.  The book lifted my spirits following this long road trip, and I read it straight through within a few hours after arriving at our cottage in Sewanee.  My only disappointment in the small volume of poetry was that I wanted more poems – the chapbook contains seventeen tightly-woven poems in Darrell’s irresistible voice.  Darrell’s poetic voice still sings even though he has retired from the position of Poet Laureate, and he sings best about his family, especially his deceased mother in the poignant end poem, “Holding the Notes.”

Equally powerful are his poems about his literary friends from south Louisiana.  Included in HOLDING THE NOTES is the tribute to his friend, Ernest Gaines, writer of the memorable The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman. The tribute poem was composed for the opening of the Ernest J. Gaines Center at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette.  Entitled “Of Men and Rivers,” the masterful lyrics evoke images of Gaines’ childhood and the Quarter residents who live in his stories about southern blacks, which he created from memories of those Quarter characters. 

Darrell’s poems are evocations of the region of south Louisiana where he still resides and are rendered with honesty and strength of character.  He has a sense of place honed to precision, a gift for portraying lives normally unsung, depicted with gentle wisdom. 

HOLDING THE NOTES is dedicated to Darrell’s mother, and his aunts hold a close second place to her with their appearance in the first intense poem of the book.  It’s entitled “Before the Sparrows Wakened:”

BEFORE THE SPARROWS WAKENED

Before daylight we were awakened by the voices

        of my aunts in my mother’s kitchen.

As soon as my father and my uncles left for work,

        they appeared like gauzy apparitions

and shadowed our backdoor.  The sky outside

        was but a dimly lighted sheet

and the sparrows were still drowsing lazily

        in the upper branches of the trees.

These birds were rhymes for who we were

        in our beds; still, but being awakened

slowly by the voices and the perfume creeping

        into the woodwork as water plumped

the dark, rich grounds in the little blue pot

        sitting inside another pot on the stove.

The anxious thoughts these women carried inside,

        they put out on the table

along with whatever was left from yesterday:

        sweet dough pie or fig cakes,

gateau sirop or des orielles de cochon.

        On this fare they would break fast

and whatever gleamed in their lives or in lives

        close by, they lighted the room with.

This hour was something they had taken as theirs,

        and it was their job to start the day.

 – Darrell Bourque –

I enjoyed the honor of reading alongside Darrell a year and a half ago in New Iberia, Louisiana where we shared one segment devoted to children in Haiti, and Darrell’s poem from that reading, “Venus Rising in Haiti,” is contained in HOLDING THE NOTES.

Darrell’s previous books include THE DOORS BETWEEEN US, Burnt Water Suite, The Blue Boat (my favorite), Call and Response, and In Ordinary Light.  He is presently Professor Emeritus of English and Interdisciplinary Humanities at ULL where he held the position of Friends of the Humanities Honor Professor. 

The poetry reading in New Iberia in January, 2010 remains the highlight of my career as a poet, and I was moved to write the following poem about Darrell the day after we performed together:

TO DARRELL

It is good to read poems with you,

the ultimate poet leading the ultimate life;

I liked that our ancestors have common roots

tightly entwined in boats

rocking on the wave of exile,

their coming disturbing a halcyon world--

wilderness and deliverance in one place.

By right of poetry

we became friends in a friendlier world;

I am looking at your face,

one that has known lost battles

and lately won even more.

It is a face more French than the French,

the sharp incline of your nose,

framed by gray curls,

reading words that sound to me

like “pwis and jer, may jamay,

der swashay, dit swa, dit swa.”

Your wife looks up at you

crooning those soft inflections,

mating with your eyes again;

she does not have to remember

the romance of first years,

every day it is reflected

in your voice and eyes.

I am sorry that part of my ancestry

cannot match yours,

the speaking of this ancient language

that aroused my Scots mother’s disdain,

eclipsed my father’s perorations

   in Parisian French,

   in Cajun French,

doubling the language he never passed to me,

or I would be able to parley with you,

tell you in like patois

your poetry is elegant and delivers us,

immerses me in occasions of shared ancestry

where we recite anthems,

chants of the Grand Derangement,

coming upon this place

of tangled vines and brown water, singing

it is good to be a poet with you,

it is good to be a poet with you,

it is good to be a poet

   in this new world.

–Diane M. Moore –

Cover Painting of HOLDING THE NOTES, "Gathering Lessons" by Bill Gingles