We could see them,
from the parlor,
where we wavered with the waltz;
children dancing,
in the garden,
to the rhythm of the world.
~Michael Douglas Jones
Over an oakwood fire, the water I had drawn from the well on Sunday, rose in a steam cloud from the kitchen kettle, and drifted dreamlike out the open window into the winter sky.
I held my head back, and drank it in deeply from the spring rain.
This water quenched my summer thirst, and a joy of recognition welled up in me.
It rolled down my cheek as a tear, dropping onto the ground, where it joined a fallen leaf from the autumn tree.
The leaf and water merged into the soil to become the budding oak beside the well, where I had drawn water on Sunday.
~Michael Douglas Jones
❦
Journal Entry; Amelia Courthouse, Virginia; April 5
There were gentlemen; there were heroes; there were common men, and cowards. Death was equal in its coming. That I survived is not enough; I must prosper, that those boys be remembered. I will remember them to my own sweet mother, and if I should meet their mothers, I shall describe them, each and all, as gallant troopers to the last breath; heroic sons of America.
The many wars waged for causes, just and unjust, are eventually resolved; history is written and revised as years pass, but mothers whose sons never return will hold that simple truth in their eyes, and still continue to give again. They know no other way.
A mother is both bowl and spoon; filling, sharing, giving; seeking nothing in return; overflowing, holding nothing back.
I have nothing to offer these mothers, only my eyes looking into their eyes, letting them know that they are not empty; that I too am their son, and they are loved.
~Michael Douglas Jones
❦
On this day, I search for solace, outside my cottage door on the moss tinged cobblestone with my old friend, the cedar bench; the two of us, grayed with age, waiting for the moon to rise. We sit silent, as a small audience to the sunset songs of cricket, frog, and creek; I collect my thoughts, which are always of you. Life is not what we have lost, it is the gifts we give, the miracles and mysteries we find at every turn, just outside the door. On this day, I see it from my seat outside on the cedar bench.
She asked, and I said,
one day, I will build a small cottage down near the Wilderness Run, where I can listen to the cool deep waters of spring freshet. I will raise a red bank barn with a fine stable of Morgan horses. I will plant and harvest, and plant and harvest, and plant again. I will see the seasons; the spring growing, the winter resting, and all the days between.
And she asked why, and I answered,
I long to marry and dance many a Virginia Reel in the parlor with you. I long to start a family; the tiny tickle of babies laughing, filling our rooms, filling our hearts, and I long to sit on our front porch in the still evening of peace and plenty into our old age.
And she said, you should ask.
❦
