He could not, in that moment, remember
where in the Book this had happened
before, where among plagues of frogs
and mice, or brimstone raining down
on the heads of the unrighteous—
instead
could summon only the quavering calls
of mourning doves, out in the orchard,
where on days like this the sweet mire
of fallen, neglected apples gave off
a scent that seemed interchangeable
with the murmur of bees—
but it had been
years since he could hear honeybees,
or cicadas, or distant thunder. Years
during which he had lived by himself
on the old place. Years since that day
they had carried her to the family plot,
at the far end of the eighty-acre field,
amid the pines and cedars. All that
more than a dozen years ago.
“Difficult,”
she had whispered, at the end,
“they said you were a difficult man.”
She smiled, as though she understood
it has been otherwise. That smile
had stayed with him. But he was left
to wonder, three days later, standing
with the others, out in the grove,
if she were not sad to be leaving.
And so he had gone once a year,
carrying a cone of newspaper filled
with the blue phlox she had tended,
to place against the stone. Had gone
to stand, with bowed head.
A difficult man.
A hard man, some said, to have wrestled
with that played-out farm all those years,
and never once considered taking her
and going elsewhere. Because his people
had been there from the beginning,
and were waiting, out in that grove.
Difficult. And a stiffness in his heart
that he could not explain. And now,
his hearing, his vision. On this visit,
he did not see, failed to notice the clouds
to the south, their peculiar color. Ignored,
as he walked along, the wind picking up,
then dying, and the air suddeny cold.
Up ahead was the grove, its stones
tilted and dim, beneath the old trees.
He was far from the last barn or shed,
out in a vast empty field gone fallow.
Hail, when it first falls, bounces up
from hard surfaces, but there was nothing
except tall grass along that path, At first
it seemed someone was following him,
then the quick sharp stings, on his neck
and hands—
it was all around him now,
smacking down, hammering hard,
the strange bluish stones becoming
bigger than any he had ever seen
before. Cold fists battered his face
and forearms, the bunch of phlox
flew from his grasp. The blossoms
scattered across the trail, beaten
and broken, the piece of newspaper
punched full of holes.
And nowhere
to turn. He was entirely without shelter.
It was half a mile to the grove, a mile
back to the first shed, and at his age
he could not run, could not make it,
could only drop to his knees, try
to roll into a ball, while the stones
kept banging away, pounding him
not in any sequence, but in bursts,
as though he were being kicked
again and again by some creature
with iron-shod hooves.
He lay there
twitching, hugging the ground, half
remembering plagues of hailstones,
blasphemers being punished, Saul
holding Stephen’s coat, even Jesus
stepping in to reason with those
who had brought the woman taken
in adultery—
but now it all seemed
far away, translucent pages fluttering
in the wind. Random stones bounced
against his skull, his shoulders—
final gestures that no longer seemed
difficult to grasp.
He began
to let go, like a ball of twine
that has been hidden away
in some dry, dark place for years
and now has been brought out
into the wind, the blowing rain,
and is beginning to unravel,
to come apart. All around him,
gathered in icy drifts, the stones
with their blue, crystalline hearts
began to melt and disappear.
First published in Southern Hum, www.southernhum.com, 17 December 2006.
