Posted by
Scaramouche on Thursday, November 15, 2007 10:27:18 AM
Something
fishy in my family tree, and that something fishy turned out to be me. Papa was a jack-as-, Mama was a
mare; I was different from all the rest, but I didn’t really care. Poetry of
life; sweet in the beginning, bitter in the end. Potential that never came to
ought but ashes in the wind. Scaramouche never fit in well with family for
whatever reason. It suited him better then and now to remain apart. Bred and
reared in a small delta town with directions to nowhere; too little ambition
and his only sense was a sense of humor. You know, like in Las Vegas - do the gamblers refer to the
dominant wager as the alpha-bet? Sure, it’s lagging, but it’ll pick back up
directly. Surrounded then and now with uncles and
aunts; cousins by the score and never closer than polite conversation, polite
but nothing more. Married to a woman who had been another man’s wife. Picked by
her to raise an adopted son who always fit closer than any natural family on
father’s or mother’s side. Except on rare occasions alone again in this body,
this room, this life. Sure it could have been different, but it also could have
been worse. So much to be grateful for; enough for a whole ‘nother verse.
To say that my family
came from humble beginnings; to say that they were country personified would be
the coup de gras of all understatements ever made. It’s like this: Uncle Henry and Aunt Vera lived so far back
in the woods that there was only a small path to their door. When Vera died of
the fever, Henry just placed her body on the compost heap out back of the
house. Time and energy combined with organic matter merged Vera’s body with all
that was added from that point on. We figured it was similar to having her
cremated ashes spread on a field of daiseys when Henry distributed the remains
on the flower beds and planters around the house…and we always thought of
Auntie when the flowers bloomed so beautifully in spring…and we would always
say thank you…..
Thank you Vera mulch.