Noel Smith

1899

THE BIRTH AT SUDIE CATON’S

 

Sudie Caton’s time has come.

Nancy Ann has carefully laid out

her scissors, white sheet

and packets of herbs. It is dark

but for the flickering

of a single candle guttering

on the broken-down stove.

The night air pours in

through gaps in the log walls.

 

The twins have gone up the creek

with their grandmother.

Nancy Ann tilts a splint chair

against the chinking to doze, but hounds

whine and shuffle under the planks,

and far toward the mountain

an owl’s sob sifts in over and over.

 

Two gnarled hands appear

inside the door sill and old Papa Jamison

skinny as a string of pulled gum

jerks in on hands and knees,

a corn cob pipe bobbing in his mouth.

His neck wags this way and that

sniffing danger. He sees Nancy Ann,

swears, spits and crawls back out.

 

Nancy Ann walks Sudie Caton up and down

the plank floor to encourage her body

to give over its tiny prize,

one figure leaning on the other,

a walk so ancient and patient

in its steadfastness

that each footfall is a prayer.

 

At long last the morning sifts in flawless,

each leaf bejeweled with light.

Sudie Caton is stretched out on the iron bed

where the sun shines in on her

through a hole in the wall.

 

Amos’ head jerks into a beam of light.

As his body slithers into the crisp air,

steam rises from his flanks

and this blinding shaft

ignites him briefly before Nancy Ann

wraps him in the blanket the church sent.

 

2005

I TELL YOU I AM BY MYSELF DOWN HERE

 

You’d think on this bright day

the way the light is,

messages could come in from outlandish places.

 

I call to my great grandmothers

on down the line all laid to rest

in the Campbell cemetery with the babies.

 

You, Granny Haywood, were

buried in shame all by yourself,

just cause you were stuck

 

with that wild man Jobie Creech

all the time messing with women.

They say you shot his favorite, Emmie,

 

her with her baby in her arms.

She was down a while before she died.

Being as the baby was Jobie’s, you raised it.

 

Once in a while Jobie would

take Emmie something special.

One time it was sausages and souse.

 

He wrapped it up for her

and just as he left,

you switched it to a poke of cow pies.

 

Nothing like that happens to me.

Just as well. You, Granny Haywood,

were buried as befits a murderer.

 

I never knew you and still I miss you.

How was it for you all? In your time

did you feel the gray mist all day

 

clamping down, pressing on your chest

as if you was under the river?

And the little coffins. I would like

 

you to tell me, how you got through.

After that we wouldn’t have much

to talk about as I just have

 

t.v., my girl friends and my new pickup.

Jesus isn’t around that much.

I just get up, put my McDonald’s uniform on,

 

go to work, come home, watch my stories.

But the way the light is today,

messages ought to come in.

 

I feel it every time that Redbird sings

but I’ve not the tongue to name it.

I tell you I am by myself down here.

 

 

1940

CALEB AIN’T GOING TO DO ME

LIKE HE DID FANNIE

 

Right after they married sister Fannie off

Caleb and Bige Wheeler rose up

drunk as hoot owls and hollered for me.

 

I tore up the mountain like a wall-eyed bat

over the head of the holler, thorns

drawing blood, and down the branch along

 

those bald stones so wet and shiny,

through the dark green hemlocks like rooms

that hide me. I stopped in the cool moss

 

to listen to the branch, the way it just jingles along

without a care in its sweet singing. It said

soon you will be gone from this black place.

 

Directly I came on Uncle Digby sitting on his porch.

I said, Caleb ain’t gonna do me like he did Fannie

and I’ve come to ask you for some money

 

so I can get gone from here. Uncle Digby,

them kind blue eyes of his, You just a child, he said,

Lord have mercy. He went in and came out,

 

handed me a handkerchief tied up,

money inside. I hopped a train to Aunt Suzie’s

and stayed till the day Johnny Howard came to me.

 

from THE WELL STRING