FROM MY WINDOW OVERLOOKING THE BACKYARD

 

Don’t know whether a bird in hand is worth two in the bird bath or not, but we don’t have any problems with our stone bath in the backyard inviting in even one feathered friend because it’s always empty — on purpose. I mean, most Louisiana bird baths should be re-composed as planters, backyard decor, or something other than hold a place where immodest birds flock to bathe naked daily. In reality, if water is left in these stone bowls, they draw in Louisiana mosquitoes the size of horseflies, and mosquitoes draw in rats and snakes. Right?

Half the time, the bowl of our bird bath in the New Iberia back yard lies upended on the ground, but a hurricane isn’t the cause of its upending. Judging from the population of raccoons, an armadillo, marauding dogs and cats around us, I think that the bath is a target for some animal game called “tip the tub.” Most of the time, the bowl lies on the ground looking as if it’s anticipating becoming a planter we should fill with vegetation that will survive backyard shade.

Our smaller bird bath in the yard at Sewanee, Tennessee, isn’t often visited unless it’s filled with purified water, and I think the birds have taken on some of the “entitled” aspects of the clergy/scholars who live in that rarefied Sewanee atmosphere. They turn up their beaks at ordinary rainwater. Most of the time, in both locales, New Iberia and Sewanee, we don’t fill the bowls of the baths because squirrels come calling if they see the water. We’ve caught Squirrel Nutkin swishing his tail in the Sewanee bath several times — and we won’t comment on pesky squirrels that inhabit both Louisiana and Tennessee yards... but I’ve been known to threaten to order a b-b rifle similar to the one I gave my brother Harold on his 7th birthday and …

Well, hummingbirds don’t drink water, and I’m partial to that species of bird life, so I’m thinking of planting coral bells, columbine, or coreopsis in the upturned mouth of the empty bird bath at planting time. The red blooms will look great against the background of the new cedar fence at which the hounds next door bark despite the wall’s impassive, uninviting stance.

 

Photograph by Victoria Sullivan

 

 

FENCES

In “Mending Wall,” Robert Frost concludes a short poem with the often-quoted line, “Good fences make good neighbors.” Today, I thought of Frost’s poem as I looked out at our new cedar fence that divides our yard and the backyard of a new neighbor who lives on one side of our home in New Iberia, Louisiana. On the opposite side of our yard, I look out at a sagging, gray-colored, older fence, one that leans toward our drive, and which I prefer because it reminds me of the neighbor who planted satsuma trees on his side of the fence and from which we have always plucked overhanging fruit.

This good neighbor died of pancreatic cancer several decades ago. He was an amiable man who came over, at no one’s request, and raked our entire front yard following a major Louisiana hurricane. He verged on mute because he performed the task quietly, then returned to his side of the fence as if he had tended to the grooming of his own yard. I never knew anything about this neighbor’s lineage, but when satsumas form and hang over his old fence, in my mind I see a face that looks almost Native American.

He had hair the color of the ravens that nest in a tree beside his former home, a sallow complexion (perhaps caused by his disease) but he was a handsome, lonely looking fellow (although he had a wife and three young children). When I remember this man who spontaneously performed small tasks in my yard, I think of Cherokee people I had seen near Silva, North Carolina, persons whose appearance resembled the quiet neighbor, who lived and continue to live  in harmony with nature, have kind hearts, and are known as wonder workers.


 

 

Our new cedar fence on the opposite side of our home divides us from a dog yard surrounded by a flimsy wire fence that two hounds push down if they’re roaming around outside and from which they could leap over and into our yard at one time but can no longer scale because of our newly-built tall cedar one. The cedar fence is handsome and was expensive to erect, but it isn’t a wall that inspires sentiment like the old sagging fence on the other side of our drive— one that brings up cogent memories within me — those of the kind-hearted neighbor who embodied Frost’s line, “Good fences make good neighbors.”

 

Photographs by Victoria I. Sullivan

 

LIGHT IN A GLASS ROOM

Glass porch in the morning

The glass porch in our Louisiana home is my favorite room. True, the glass is smudged with bayou country grime from lack of care during the months we are away. Or perhaps the glass is cloudy because the porch is a place friends have visited to tell some dark stories about broken relationships, illnesses, quarrels — the glass porch has often housed usual and unusual tales of human tragedies.

However, this four-season indoor/outdoor room also holds the hopes for new perspective…it is a living room with a better view. Sometimes I go there to write, but the room doesn’t invite labor or action. I frequently fall asleep sitting in a comfortable wicker chair while the sunlight beams through on my winter-pale face.

The room also houses a few of the glass pieces created by Karen Bourque, a talented Church Point, Louisiana artist, and adds to the idea of inspiring joy in this life, albeit smudged with our tragic stories.

All homes should have such a room, perhaps now more than ever in this time of Covid. I went into the glass sanctuary this morning to share in the grief of my dear friend, Kathy, who lives in Sewanee, Tennessee, and who just lost her sister, Mary Kay, to the dread Covid disease.

Wicker chair on glass porch

The glass porch is also a place of prayer. Another smudge has appeared on the glass, and another prayer goes up for Kathy’s release from suffering. The sun fills Karen’s pieces with light in this small blessed space, and I ponder the idea of glassing in our little front porch at Sewanee. However, the porch faces dark woods and only collects shadows…and spiders.

Vickie Sullivan’s photographs capture the essence of this space on a cold winter morning, and I wish that I could say, “Come and sit awhile,” but this open-to-sunlight room doesn’t tolerate masked visitors!