Tag Archives: prose

Disheartened Soldier from Another Time

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I was walking in the wood late in evening, enjoying wild birdsong and dining on a delicious landscape of somber hardwood seasoned with a dash of savory ice on branches now long bereft of rattling leaves, and as I approached a stream of hard and silent water, there boldly came an apparition upon my reverie. It was an ageless man of whom I felt no dread, yet anticipation of his purpose consumed any thought I might entertain to ignore or depart from him.

It was plain from his dress and demeanor that he was a soldier, adorned in a crisp blue long coat with the boldest of black threefold hats. His trousers were of white cotton and bore no scratch or mark of his trek in the wood, nor were any brass buttons missing from his breast. Perplexion was fixed upon his countenance as he stared at me and in his presence, strange thoughts of shame of long-endured passivity weighed heavily on my bearing. “From whence”, said he, “do ye hail, who so casually tread this wood? Is it not the same land upon which I, among thine forbears and fathers shed my blood to provide thee with a sacred and free republic?”

Fright, not at his presence, but at his seeming insistence for answer, overwhelmed my heart as I could but stammer words that might be interpreted that, indeed, this was a continuum of that hallowed land. As I stood in awe of such bewilderment as he displayed, it came to me that he wept silently as he spoke words which pierced my heart with arrows from a former time, a time when this nation was but in it’s youth. “Doth not the same God redeem thy souls, is not the Savior of man the same in this day as He of long ago? Hast thy people forgotten the valor with which we of hope and incredible vigor and relying on Providence braved deadly volleys of rank musket and cannon balls to gain thy sovereignty and prosperity? How then, has an evil enemy so stealthily crept upon, and forsooth, overtaken this nation today?”

“This is a place beyond that land which you secured,” at last spake I, “As years passed, lesser men of lesser heart appeared, gained status endowed of evil by mammon, and came tempted, as knowledge of vast tracts beyond the nation you knew, came about, by great deceit and dishonor, to wrest from rightful owners the abundant and fruitful lands beyond that which your army secured.” As my confidence waxed, I continued, “He of Providence was denied, yet might of weapons from whence malicious heat from the forges of Satan’s armouries had not yet dissipated, were put to use to diminish, to defeat and yea, to slay those by whom fair title was claimed.”

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“As scores of years became centuries, all but the Creator forgot the wicked abrogation of treaties once foreordained to be honored as leaders continued in moral decline, and colonial appropriation of lands and nations increased the world over, but especially in his nation – descendants of those peoples with whom your leaders treated were slain and imprisoned and vanished into memory. Indeed, the banner under which your drums sounded amid the blue-white smoke of cannon is changed now, by many added insignias to that number of thirteen by which your blood gained liberty.

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“Must thee and thy progeny, therefore, be thus accursed as to receive upon thyself such waxing theft and murder as this which ye bear witness and yet lift not thy hand to resist? In mine years, would neither citizen nor soldier deign approach the Almighty Creator for prayer belabored with such cowardice weighed upon his conscience. And now in another place ye witness again the theft of lands and slaughter of rightful owners and say nought for fear.”

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“I shall now return whence I have dwelt nigh four and a half hundreds of years and once more watch, share tears with those with whom I served, for my own blood and that of my companions, forbears of yesteryear, that ye should so lightly and cowardly abandon, yea and forsake, the sovereignty of this land for which we fought and died. Farewell, yet still pray thee for thy long-ignored want of Providence.” As his last words sadly reached my ears, he began to walk away as he cried now aloud, slowly and completely evaporated into the woodland, but his wailing cries echoed, and if one listens, especially on days when those who purport to lead us slavishly perform acts of obeisance to – and among – our enemies, his piteous cries can still be heard.

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MK

Anticipating the Ozark Autumn World

Little stream not far from our farm

This is the time of year that readers of folkpotpourri know to expect the psychological disorder which I call OCPA, obsessive, compulsive prose of autumn, to overtake this writer again. By now y’all know autumn’s my favorite time of the year, so far surpassing other seasons that it would be unfair to even compare them. I understand that I’d be hard-pressed to render a tribute with even a modicum of word smithery, but this is a free website after all, and everyone knows you get what you pay for, so just indulge me. Besides today is the last day of summer, so it’s technically not fall yet – things are just getting warmed up (to cool down). Anyways, we need something peaceful to think about with all the bad things going on in the world. Here goes:

Random early dogwood leaf

Fallow hickory breezes blow through silent dales as the Celestial palette again waxes encumbered neath thickening shades of pastel grown prepared to cloak brooding gum trees now grown weary of their verdant apparel of yesterday’s springtime blessing. Blissfully now the normally irascible crow cheers this scintillation of the whispered taste of autumn being offered, generous harbinger of the temperate weeks of summer’s wan from haze and endless days of imposing heat. As fall expires, however, this same cantankerous bird will be among the loudest of those carping of the cold.

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Waiting for spring

Great white oaks undulate in joyful dance upon azure heavens as they beckon a north wind to bring forth splendid new autumn attire, eager to don whichever hue the Master has granted for what surely will become another fete of autumnal majesty, held but for another day, another week perhaps, but soon, nevertheless. The dogwood has already begun to loudly emerge from the sylvan dressing chamber, cloaked in another gown of magnificent copper and abundantly bespecled with crowds of bright red berries clinging to her laden branches.

Late summer dogwood getting changed – not quite dressed yet but beautiful nonetheless

Such is their eagerness to display this year’s boisterous scarlet, poison ivy wends among hickory tops, singing loudly their familiar, red-shaded aria to herald fall’s arrival. As his leaves become gilded with a tint of gold that only the Master artist could produce, the hickory patiently and silently awaits his turn to sing his fallow song – and sing he will, but anon as crisp wind flies upon the hills. Soon icy fingers shall grasp tender green branches intent upon splashing autumn colors on all.

These are from last year – scenes like this aren’t here just yet.

Halls of indescribable splendor will soon grace somber hills of misty silence, all decorated by the same Master whose unmatched attention to beauty and peaceful serenity of a perfectly decorated hillside compasses this sylvan world. The gaudy black gum and sumac are the appetizer, sufficient themselves to sate any hunger for magnificence, yet they only tantalize – fallow hickory and shades of red and rust of stately oaks, and the highly prized yellow and pastel orange of the maple are the main course. Thank God for the beauty He has bestowed upon us!

Maples adding their touches of color to the painting

He created this excellent world of color for our eyes to enjoy – then he created our eyes such that we can enjoy it!

Spring fed pond with late summer wildflowers

Enjoy autumn as y’all are able to get out, and may God bless all.

MK

Rotting Forest of a Decaying Empire

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Does the great oak stand silent beside a glade of verdant solitude, still and vigilant, recalling in her solemn boughs a merriment long stilled? Has dwelt here children of sojourners among woodland and meadow creatures at play in swathes of damp clover mindless of care and interested in but gaiety, frolicking through dusky haze as fireflies are wont, yet mindless of gathering darkness, of impending arrival of sightless, senseless creatures brought forth from bitter times and dungeons of riot?

Under those oaken boughs and purchased with song of promise, yet unfulfilled and in great need a host of burdened and humble yet proud villages gaze from their dwellings in misplaced admiration of a nation long regarded to revel in prosperity, yet that hope of plenty dwells no longer upon this glade. Songbirds long taken to wing perch today here but in memory, woodland creatures indeed ceased wandering these environs and nurturing their young to thrive in forests of Provident abundance. A brooding stillness lies unperturbed over noisome fens long polluted by consummate and malevolent greed burning this forest, yet still the distant beggar desires his name, a mailbox here to grace, though it stand forlorn on some sad avenue of depredation where brambles and vines consume all.

From soiled places afar her light, once deemed with glorious with blazing allure, beckoned visitors, sang of virtue and pleasantries to delight the heart, has come feeble, no more than the flicker of a candle struggling for life in an incessant whirlwind of malice. The memorial lady, once who stood bravely with torch held high though long having ceased to burn, sadly gazes over ocean paths no longer plied by ships brimming with expectant hordes of strangers of strange tongues anxious to plow in new fields. Her feet now decay in mire as she feebly tries to warn away the few hopeful travelers who would seek refuge in her bosom.

Her cities, once proud and vibrant testaments to her abundance, are diminished, become dark and malodorous canyons where grotesquely deformed and mindless denizens awkwardly grope at unseen objects – objects only present in caverns which ever reveal infinite strangeness which only those destitute eyes perceive. They wander eternally through their own forests of calamity, seeking nothing, pondering nothing. High above, in sunlit arcades of the forest canopy, dwell lesser creatures, those who harvested the timber and created this bleakness, those who suppose themselves to be guardians.

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As a dark wind approaches with the storm that will wash clean this sick, demented forest of empire, by now completely bereft of safe harbor to any, we bid farewell condolence to efforts of greater men who first sowed in her woodland. If trees are to become verdant, however, and boughs once again shall dance upon innocent summer breezes, those who love her memory – her inhabitants – must replant.

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MK