Book of Sketches (3 page)

 

Night — & when the
great rains of the
night boom & thunder
in the South, when
the woods are blackened,
made wet,
mudded, shrouded,
impossibled —

 

& when the rain
drips from the roof
of the G. Store
in silver tragic milky
beadlets over the bright
bulb-light of the
old platform — inside
we see the snow white
bags of flower, the
whitewashed woodwalls,
the dark & baneful
harness hanging, a
few shining buckets
for the farm —
Sat. rainy night,
the cars come by
raising whizzes of
smoky dew from
the road, their tires
hum, they go off
to a rumble of
their own —
And the great falls —
The watermelons are
wetted, cooled — The
earth breathes a
new rank cold up
— there’s winter
in the bones of this
earth — Thunder of
our ancestors, Blake,
Kingsley, Harris, —
thunder of our ancestors
rumbles in the unseen
sky — the wood walls
of the store have now
that tragic businesslike
look of hardships in
the old rain, use in
old wars, old necessities
— Now we see that
there were men who
wore raincoats & boots
& struggled here —

 

& only left their ghosts,
& these few hardhip
houses, to sit in the
Saturday night rain.
How different from
the Saturday night of
the cities, the Chinatowns,
the harbors of the
world! — This silent
place haunted by
corn shapes, the
beauteous shrouds of
fields, the white leer
flash of lightning, the
stern tones of thunder
(the rattlebones of
bunder, the long buuk
braun roll of munder,
the far off hey - Call
of old poor sunder,)
— Ah South! of
which I read, as a
child, of coonskin caps,
Civil wars, piney woods,
brothers, dogs, morning
& new hope — Ah
South! Poor America!
The rain has been
falling a long time on
thee & on thy
history —
George hustles across
the road with a
bagful of his own
beer — a Grandet
of the Americas,
worse than Grandet!
he wears no miser’s
Puritan cap, or
gloves, but smoking
a harmless cigar —

 

the bulb shines sad
& lonely on the old
wood porch of the
South — I see it —
In the loam of
the Blake yard sweet
rain has soaked
in greens & flowers
& the grass, & in
the mud, & sends
up fragrances of
the new clean
eternal Earth —
Inside the low
roofed homey rosy
lit Blake home, see
the little family
there, bearing Time
in a rainy hour
in the silence of themselves
Leaves thin-shadow on
the wall — on the
mottled redbrick base
foundation — on the
wet variant tangled
weeds & up-sway
grasses of the yard —
Rain glitters in
little bark-pools
of the tree-trunk
— sweet cool night
& washed up, heavy
hanging vegetation
— Lights of passing
cars dance in the
drip-drops of the
awning — Little Paul
muses at the sofa
window, turns &
yells — “Why is
it
cause,
Daddy, why
is it
cause?
”

PANORAMIC CATALOG SKETCH OF BIG EASONBURG

(backyard)

 

From right 90° to left
rich brick house where kid
lives who rides pony thru tobacco
field, farmers say
“Come on, work in the barn”
& his father driving by says
“If you wanta work, that
barn is ready” & he gallops
away saying, “The hell
with work” & niggerfarmers
& pickaninnies in hotfield
chuckle & scratch heads —
Patrician little bitch he is —
his house has big TV antenna,
8 white gables, big
garage, swings, trucks,
Farmall tractor, white iron
lawnchairs, Bird houses
dog pens, clip’t shrubs, lawn,
basketball basket & pole,
— behind house we see
trees & pines of the forest
— a thin scraggle of corn
a 100 feet off — The
dreaming weedy meadow
— then the redroof outbuildings
of Andrews old
farm — with brick chimnies,
graywood built, ancient,
lost in trees which in clear
late afternoon make glady
black holes for the Sweeny
in the Trees dream of
children — distant rafts
of corn — then the tobacco
curing barn near a
stick ramp with piled
twigs or boughs & a redroof
porch, & a door,
smoked,
at top,
tho still with old hay

 

hook for when it once
was a barn (?) — there
too black holes of green
woods — A brand new
flu-cure barn with white tin
roof, new wood, unpainted,
no windows — Then another
old one — over the yellowing
topleaves of the tobacco
field — then the majestic
nest of Great Trees where
homestead sits — darkshaded,
hidden, mystical & ripplylit,
hints of red roofs,
old gray dark wood,
poles, old chimney, still,
peaceful, mute, with
shadows lengthening along
barnwalls — The trees:
fluffy roundshaped except
for stick tree in middle
forking ugly up, & on
right skeletal of underround
silhouetting dark
boughs against wall of
forest till round of umbrella
leaftop — Between here
& there I see the rigid
woodpole sticks out of
haystack, conical Stack,
with a cross stick, surrounded
by hedge of weeds, of
brown & gray gold hairy
texture in clear French
Impressionistic Sun —
After farm solid
wall of forest broken
sharply at road, where
wall resumes on other side
— There is the gray

 

vision of the old tenant
shack with pale brick
chimbley silhouetted
against a hill-height of
September corn turned
frowsy & hay color —
with mysterious Carolina
continuing distant trees
beyond — & the faintest
wedge of littlecloud right
on horizon above — Across
road forestwall is darker,
deeper, pine trunks stand
luminous in the dark shade
bespotted & specked with
background browngreen
masses — horizontal puff-
green pinebranches, all
over the frizzly corn
top sea — Then Rod’s
logcabin, with pig pen
(old gray clapboards) &
whitewashed barrel & Raleigh
News & Observer mailbox
& telephone pole connecting
up house with 3 strands —
his withered corn in yard,
chimney, logs mixed with
white plaster, rococo
log cabin, horizontal
wood & plaster striped
chimney — Fruit tree in
back waving in faintbrown
of its California — Similar
house of neighbor where stiff
gentleman sits in Panama
hat in Carolina rockchair
surveying rusticities —

 

Then, in deepening shadows:
- (with him some
women with lap chillun,
Sun-afternoon, breeze, beez
of bugs, hum of cars on
hiway) — Far off in
pure blue an airliner
lines for Richmond —
— then the yellow diamond
Stop sign, back of it,
with brown wood pole
shadowing across it — A
stand of sweetly stirring
trees & then Buddy Tom’s
corn, tall, rippling, talkative,
haunted, gesturing, dogs run
thru it, weeds run riot,
trees protrude beyond —
Then his whitewashed
poles, chickencoop, doors,
hinges, rickety wire —
weeds — wild redflowers —
a tall stately pine
with black balls of
cone silhouetted against
keen blue — under
it an excited weeping
willow waving like
a Zephyr song — 2 cars
parked beneath it, blue
fishtail Cad — Tom’s —
stiff big red flower —
folks visitin, talking —
children — Lillian in
shorts (big, fat) dumps
a carton in the rusty
barrel — The base of
pine whitewashed — Buddy
Tom’s shed, just & peek
at interior shelf &
paint can — leaning
rake — Forest wall beyond.

 

They sit with the gold
on their hair —

SECOND BOOK

AUG. 5, ’52

The diningroom of
Carolyn Blake has
a beautiful hardwood
floor, varnished shiny,
with occasional dark
knots; the rag rug
in the middle is woven
by her mother of the
historic socks, dresses
& trousers of the
Kerouac family in 2
decades, a weft of
poor humanity in its
pain & bitterness — The
walls are pale pink
plaster, not even pink,

 

a pink-tinged pastel,
the No Carolina afternoon
aureates through the
white Venetian blinds
& through the red-pink
plastic curtains & falls
upon the plaster, with
soft delicate shades — here,
by the commode in
the corner, profound
underwater pink; then,
in the corner where
the light falls flush,
bright creampink
that shows a tiny
waving thread of
spiderweb overlooked

 

by the greedy housekeeper
— So the white
paint shining on the
doorframes blends with
the pink & pastel &
makes a restful room.
The table is of simple
plytex red surface,
with matching little
chairs covered in
red plastic — But Oh
the humanity in the
souls of these chairs,
this room — no words!
no plastics to name
it!
Carolyn has set out
a little metal napkin
holder, with green
paper napkins, in
the middle of her
table. Nothing is
provincial — there is
nothing provincial in
America — unless
it is the radio, staticing
from late afternoon
Carolina August
disturbances — the
vast cloud-glorious
Coastal Plain in its
green peace —

 

The voices of rustic-
affectated announcers
advertising feeds
& seeds — & dull
organ solos in the
radio void — Maybe
the rusticity of the
province of NC is
in the pictures on C’s
livingroom wall: 2
framed pictures of
bird dogs, to please
her husband Paul,
who hunts. A noble
black dog stepping
with the power of a

 

great horse from a
pond, quail-in-mouth,
with sere Autumns
in the brown swales
& pale green forests
beyond; & 2 noble
nervous white & brown
dogs in a corn-gold
field, under pale
clouds, legs taut, tails
stiff like pickets,
with a frondy sad
glade beyond where
an old Watteau would
have placed his
misty courtiers book

 

in hand at Milady’s
fat thigh — These
pictures are above the
little dining table —
Meaningless picturelets
over the bureau in
the other corner (put
there temporarily
by finicky Carolyn)
a dull picture of
red flowers & fruit
rioting in the gloom —
One chair: - a
black high-back
wood rocker, with
low seat, styled

 

in the oldfashioned
country way, hint
of old New England
& Colonial Carolina —
a hint lost to the
static of the radio
& the hum & swish
of the summer fan
set on the floor to
circulate air in a
wide arc from one
extreme twist of
its face to the
other — a fan
brought home by her
husband from his
office at the Telephone
Company.
CB herself, cig in
mouth, is opening the
windows behind the
blinds — she’d closed
them at 9 o’clock
AM to keep the
morning freshness in
— & now, near 4,
the air cooling,
she opens them again
— a fan can
only stir dusts of
the floor — Instantly
scents of fields

 

& trees comes into the
pink room with the
hardwood floor — A
gay wicker basket
is on the floor beneath
the windows,
full of newspapers
& magazines & a
Sears Roebuck catalogue
— CB is
wearing shorts, sandals
& a nondescript vestshirt
— just did her
housework — washed
the lunch dinners
&
is about to take a

 

bath — The breeze
of afternoon pillows
in the redpink plastic
curtains. Carolyn
Blake stands, cig in
mouth, glancing briefly
at the yard outside
— beyond it stretches
a meadow, a corn
field, a tobacco
field, & faintly
beyond the wreckage
of a gray flucuring
barn the
wall of the forest
of the South.

 

CB is a thin, trim
little woman of 33 —
looking younger, with
cut bangs, short hair,
bemused, modern —
On her commode, two
shelves above a drawer
& opening hinged door,
pale wood, is a
wooden salad bowl,
upright; two China
plates, upright; an
earthen jug of
Vin Rosé, empty,
brought from NY
by her mother;

 

a green glass dish —
for candy — a glass
ashtray — & two
brass candle holders
— these things luminescent
in the glow
from the windows,
in still, fan-buzzing,
lazy Carolina afternoon
time. On the
radio a loud prolonged
static from
nearby disturbances
rasps a half
minute —
On the wall
above the husband’s
diningtable chair
hangs a knickknack
shelf, with 3 levels,
tiny Chinese vase
bowl with cover —
copper horse equestrian
& still in its
petite mysterious
shelf — & Chinese
porcelain rice-girl
with hugehat &
double baskets.
These are some of
the incidental
appurtenances in
the life of a little

 

Carolina housewife
in 1952.

 

She turns & goes into
the parlor — a
more elegant room,
with green leather
chairs, gray rug, book
shelves, — goes to the
screen door — lets
in Little Paul &
Little Jackie Lee —
Her son Little Paul comes
yells “Mommy I
wants some ice water!
Me & Jackie Lee wants
some ice water!
Mommy!” She shoos
them in with an absentminded
air —
Little Paul, blond, thin,
is her son; Jackie Lee,
dark, plumper, belongs
to a neighbor — They
rush in, barefooted,
each 4, in little
shorts, screaming,
wiggling —
In the kitchen, at
her refrigerator she
pours out ice

 

cube trays — Little
Paul holds the green
plastic waterbottle —
“That water’s warm,”
says Carolyn Blake,
“let me make you
some ice — ”
“I wants some
cracked ice Mommy!
Is that what you
wants Jackie Lee?”
“Ah-huh,” — assent,
“Ah-huh Pah-owl.”
The little mother
gravely works on the
ice; above the sink,
with a crank, is an
ice cracker; she