THE HIDDEN TRACK

The following passages are dedicated to Leopold, to the vernacular, to certain evil women (you know who you are), to certain wonderful people(they know who they are), to soft afternoons and quiet Sunday evenings, to Fall and seeing your breath for the first time since Spring, and to Isabelle Ya Feng ... a soul slipped by like two ships passing in the still, moonlit sea.
-- Abraham Ahmed, the Surfing Beatnik



As the Stiltwalker Moves to the next Lamp...

My Dearest Maribeth,

'Tis the golden hour in the Eastern shore... the sun is nestling between that difficult gap to the right of the the great clock face and to the left of the sickly pine that juts from the bend at the top of the hill. The laborers are skipping their way to the pubs, avoiding their places of home and turning, rather, to a pint for comfort in place of their respective hearths. The air is sour with the smells of the city decaying into the night, as the newly turned-out pails and muck buckets refuse to evaporate.

I am certain God is here, somewhere within the face of the bricks, somewhere within the eyes of the street whores and pickpockets, somewhere within the hearts of the horses that kick and huff at the cobble beneath their hooves. I am certain God is here, but He and I have yet to exchange words, real words, and I am lost in foretelling just where God is.

I long to be within the cut grasses of estate, where stiltwalkers light no street lamps at dusk. I feel the tilled soil underneath my leather soles as we walk the lanes of turned rows in the upper Caldwells...even as I scribe these very words.

'Tis the golden hour in the Eastern shore... but I am discovering no solace in the daylight's settling. I am forlorn, longing for Hensington and the sweet brooks and crickets and cows and sweeping farmlands of my youth.

Within the Confides,

Marcel F. A. Pennington

No comments:

Post a Comment