Listen Here (43 page)

(April 25, 1949–)

George Ella Lyon, the daughter of Gladys Fowler Hoskins, a community worker, and Robert Hoskins Jr., a savings and loan officer, is a native of Harlan, Kentucky. “I was born with poor vision and a good ear, into a Southern mountain family and culture rich in stories,” she says. “Early on, I wanted to be a neon sign maker and I still hope to make words that glow.”

Lyon earned a B.A. in English, Phi Beta Kappa, from Centre College in Danville, Kentucky, in 1971. She completed her M.A. in English at the University of Arkansas in 1972, and her Ph.D. in English, with a minor in creative writing, from Indiana University in 1978. While at Indiana, she studied with poet Ruth Stone.

“In 1972 I began trying to publish a collection of poems,” says Lyon. “Eleven years later I succeeded.” Her first book,
Mountain
, was published in 1983, and a steady stream of publications have followed, including more than nineteen picture books, four novels for young readers, an autobiography, and a second collection of poetry. Her first novel for adults,
With a Hammer for My Heart
, was selected by Borders bookstore for inclusion in its Original Voices series. She designed and hosted a five-program writers' workshop series entitled
Everyday Voices
[for Kentucky Educational Television (KET).]

Lyon's work has won numerous awards, including a Golden Kite Award for
Borrowed Children
and a Best Books of the Year citation from
Publisher's Weekly
for
Who Came Down That Road?
One of her children's books,
Come a Tide
, has been featured on PBS's
Reading Rainbow.

“Writing,” says Lyon, “is not thinking something up and putting it down, like downloading a computer. It's more like offering your clay body to the kiln. Give your heart to writing and your substance will be changed.”

Recognized as a nurturer of young talent, Lyon jokes that she “runs a pro bono unemployment agency consulting with writers on how not to take jobs which would preclude writing.”

Lyon has taught at a number of universities, but presently makes her living as a freelance writer, lecturer, and workshop leader. She has served as co-editor of three anthologies, including
Old Wounds, New Words: Poems from the Appalachian Poetry Project.
She lives in Lexington, Kentucky, with her husband, Steve Lyon, a musician, and their two sons.

In this scene from
With a Hammer for My Heart
, the reader is introduced to Mamaw, Lawanda's grandmother who lives in the small Appalachian community of Cardin, Kentucky.

Novels:
With a Hammer for My Heart
(1997).
Novels for young readers:
Gina.Jamie.Father.Bear
(2002),
The Stranger I Left Behind Me
(1997; originally published as
Red Rover, Red Rover
, 1989),
Here and Then
(1994),
Borrowed Children
(1988).
Picture books for children:
One Lucky
Girl (2000),
Book
(1999),
Counting on the Woods: A Poem
(1998),
A Sign
(1998),
A Traveling Cat
(1998),
Ada's Pal
(1996),
A Day at Damp Camp
(1996),
Mama Is a Miner
(1994),
Five Live Bongos
(1994),
Dreamplace
(1993),
Who Came Down That
Road? (1992),
Cecil's Story
(1991),
The Outside Inn
(1991),
Come a Tide
(1990),
Basket
(1990),
Together
(1989),
A B Cedar: An Alphabet of Trees
(1989),
A Regular Rolling Noah
(1986),
Father Time and the Day Boxes
(1985).
Poetry:
where i'm from: where poems come from
(1999),
Catalpa
(1993),
Mountain
(1983).
Short stories:
Choices
(1989).
Autobiography:
“Voiceplace,” in
Bloodroot
(1998), ed. Joyce Dyer, 168–74.
A Wordful Child
(1996). “Story: Making Things Whole,”
Hemlocks and Balsams
[Lees-McRae College, Banner Elk, NC] 7 (1987), 47–55.

Contemporary Authors
, Vol. 120 (1987). Roberta T. Herrin, “From Poetry to Picture Books: The Words of George Ella Lyon,” in
Her Words
(2002), ed. Felicia Mitchell, 166–77. John Lang, ed. “George Ella Lyon Issue,”
The Iron Mountain Review
10 (summer 1994). Donna Olendorf, ed.,
Something About the Author
(1992).

from Part One

M
AMAW
: It was at Little Splinter Creek Church that I saw what I saw. Its been thirty-five years and I remember that night like the nights my younguns was born.

Perry Roby had took the Spirit and was shouting “Damnation” up one side of his breath and “Praise Jesus” down the other. August, dusky dark, and the hot church keeping you mindful of the Pit. All of a sudden, a light whipped out like you'd unrolled a bolt of cloth. I couldn't see the church nor nothing in it. I couldn't hear the creek out the window. There was only this lap of light. I didn't know but to climb up into it. That light held me in its arms, it laid my head on its bosom.

And the light had a voice.

“Mother Jesus didn't do your dying,” it said. “You'll still have to cross that river, like a child has to learn to sleep in the bed by itself. But of a morning, you'll wake up and I'll be waiting. I'm telling this to your hands. Don't let nobody go to bed before their time.”

The light hummed something sweet as rain and it set me down in Little Splinter. My hands was so hot, my sister Gola jumped when I touched her.

“She's with us now!” I shouted, and keeled toward Carla Dixon.

“Praise His name!” I heard, going down, and knew they had it all wrong.

First thing I did was make a sign that said L
ITTLE
S
PLINTER
C
REEK
C
HURCH OF THE
M
OTHER
J
ESUS
. Made it from boards left over from strengthening the chicken coop. I got me a poker and burnt the words in. Took me two weeks, had to wait till the kids was in bed. John said I was touched.

“More'n touched. I was knocked down,” I told him.

“Your insides can knock you down,” he said.

“I know that. But my insides never took me nowhere, never told me nothing.”

“Yeah?” he said. “Well, your insides ain't never been this old before. You got lights going on where my ma used to have heat waves. She'd call one of us to pump water while she stuck her head under the spout. Maybe you could use a baptizing.”

I didn't listen past that. No knot in the end of his string anyhow.

Next church day I went early, learned Sam Wilder was conducting the service, and told him I was aiming to testify. I had my sign under my arm, wrapped up in a quilt.

“You going to beat the Spirit into us?” he asked.

“No. I got something to show.”

“More'n I've got,” he said, running his hand over what was left of his hair. It was flat and yellow.

So I was called first, after “Precious Memories” and Eugene Coldiron's prayer. As soon as heads went up, Sam looked at me, thinking I would speak right where I was, but I headed up front, struggling past bellies and elbows with my sign.

“Sisters and Brothers of this church,” I said, “watered by Little Splinter Creek, baptized in Redfox River, members of this Association, every one of you sons and daughters, some fathers and mothers to boot. I tell you: we have been led, but we have mistook the leading. We've seen a sign and read it clear wrong. Those words you carved on your heart about the Father, those words are lies. ‘Jesus is our Brother,' you've been taught, been singing since you was a sprout. ‘Father and Son and Their Breath, that good Holy Ghost.'

“Well, I been breathed on, let me tell you. I been lifted up to look Them in the eye. The heart's eye, friends, the One that sees it all. And this is what I'm here to tell you: there ain't no whiskers on Their faces. She ain't our Father. She ain't our Brother. She's our Mother Jesus and she longs to take us in Her arms.”

I took the quilt off my sign and held it up.

“Mother Jesus!” I shouted as they drug me out.

…

M
AMAW
: “It was hard being turned out of Little Splinter. I was weaned on that church—it was beans and buttermilk to me. Every time there was service, my mommy had us all there, scrubbed and shiny, with our hair skinned back. I was baptized from that church, married in it, saw my daddy and mommy prayed over there at the once-a-year funeralizing. And biggest thing of all, I saw God Herself in that church, was lifted up just like the old hymn says. And that was the very thing that put me out.

“That Sunday, Lord, I went home so down, I felt I'd never get up again. My sign, which had weighed like the world walking over, I didn't even notice going back.

“Your papaw was out hoeing corn when I got home. He's never been a churchgoer.

“‘What are you doing home early, woman?' he hollered. ‘And where are them younguns?'

“Younguns? Upon my honor, I had plumb forgot about them! The service was still going when I was throwed out and I had headed home like a horse to the barn.

“Well, I didn't even speak to your papaw. I pitched my sign into a fencerow and took off up the road a-flying. Halfway there, I met them coming home.

“‘What happened, Mommy?' June cried. ‘Where'd you go?'

”‘She was churched,' Burchett said. ‘I done told you that.'

“Dolan just stood there with his thumb in his mouth.

“‘Hush, Burchett,' I said, scooping Dolan up with one arm and with the other hugging June to my waist.

“‘Ain't it true?' Burchett insisted.

“‘Can't tell you what's true right now. Let's go home and get some dinner.'

“We did. I watched them all eat hearty while every bite I took tasted like sand.

“For the next weeks, months, I don't know how long, it seemed like there was a skin over everything. Sun was far away; colors was dimmer. I couldn't even hear good. I'd stand at the stove and not smell dinner burning, not hear your papaw a-calling in the yard.

“Then Annie Isom's boy fell on a wagon tongue and Jeb asked me to sit with her while he went to Cutshin for the doc.

“It was a long journey he was starting, and this boy, Jess, was bleeding real bad. Annie had gone cold and dumb in the way people will sometimes. I sent the other younguns to play in the barn. For some cause, I called to Flo as she went out, ‘Hunt up a feather and bring it back to me, will you?'

“She did. Brown one, short and wide-splayed, most likely a wren's.

“‘Better put on some coffee, Annie,' I said. ‘We'll be needing to keep awake.'

“It was full daylight as I said this, but Annie didn't question, just put more kindling on the fire. I didn't question either. I was following something with my tongue and my hands.

“I went over to the bed where Jess was laying, whiter than just-come snow. Ten years old and his breath on my hand no stronger than a baby's, the sheets wadded around him bright with blood.

“‘Mother Jesus,' I said, something drawing out my voice, ‘let us keep Jess, this boy that's just started to grow. Stop his life from spilling. Let his pain fall away like this old wren's feather. Seal his wounds, Mother Jesus, and heal Sister Annie's heart.'

“I had one hand on Jess's forehead as I said this, and with the other I touched the feather to his shoulder bones, the fork of his legs, his heart. I closed my eyes and laid the feather inside my dress, against the heat of my bosom. And I sang:

‘Leave us a while longer
In this earthly light.
Our eyes are not ready
For Your holy sight.
Mother, comfort
Your child and take his ills.
Leave him to work for you
Among these sacred hills.'

“I'd never heard this song, mind you, but I heard my voice singing it, hoarse and flat, like wind whining in a door.

“I opened my eyes, and Jess's eyes were open too. A little color had come to his cheeks and the blood on the sheets had darkened. No new came to keep it red.

“‘She's healed him, Annie,' I said. ‘Mother Jesus has healed him!'

“Annie rushed over to the bed. She took Jess's hand, stroked his hair, smiled into his face. Then she looked back at me. ‘Don't worry, Ada,' she promised. ‘I won't never tell.'

“That seemed a shame at the time, but it didn't really matter. What I knew, I knew, and it closed the church hole in my heart. I won't say I don't sometimes grieve for Little Splinter. But all its members call me when the bad times come. Somebody goes for the doc, somebody for Mamaw. There's been many a door opened to Mother Jesus since Sam Wilder and the church shut us out.”