Leaf Fall

Maybe 20%of the leaves are down. Acorns are driving me crazy. I can see more sky. Acorn gunshots go off in volleys. Big Roy and I were smoking meat and grilling at his place in Little Babylon (across the tracks in Duck Hill), under a big white oak tree. The nuts were falling all around us. In Mississippi things moved slowly. We'd been drinking a very good moonshine. Roy had a great smokehouse, the fire was outside, in a pit, and the smoke got to the floor of the smokehouse through a ceramic pipe. This is long, slow smoking, and it didn't require a lot of attention, we were grilling ribs and brisket for a wedding party. The smokehouse looked a lot like an outhouse on fire. I asked if we shouldn't maybe move the grill out into the open. What, he said, you're afraid of getting hit? Yes, I said, these things are half the size of golf-balls and could kill you. We moved the grill, but he chuckled at me all afternoon, about how I didn't have faith. I don't really have any. Faith is an intellectual construct, where it's not a mindless que. And holds moderate interest for me, as a way that people pick lifestyles. I don't know why I ended the way I did. It's a curious thing. Barry Lopez and Cormac McCarthy. Fucking Faulkner, man, he turned my head around. The way a story could be told. Four people on their way to a burying ground. Why you do the things you do. Ubiquitous. The bugs at night. A solid field. The ground seems to fade away. Solar flares interrupt radio reception. Caught between solar flares and acorns. Would you come to me and ease my pain? Robert Plant singing Townes Van Zant. Then a lovely female voice, over the top, like a waterfall. A slack guitar, sounding like Dwayne Allman. I don't understand the language, but the music is loud and clear. West African? Court Yard Hounds? Music has a way of cutting through. When I'm confused I listen to Bach, slow down, eat a scone, keep it clean. Chet Adkins, Bill Evans, and my blood starts to circulate. Crossing borders. It's always the blues, that draws me back. Whatever I'm considering. You know?