Southverve

All day it rained, all day I thought of that rain from the loft of the shack, me looking out at the field, long square pasture fenced in by the Davis family pines, rain coming on.  The cows were hiding out somewhere—some other field, the little pond maybe, our woods.  The shack, what my father [...]

At night, when a wind comes through, the pines bend around the stars.  Over and over until the black and sway of the world begins to lighten, making everything under the eyelids of sleep white, whiter until the sun’s insistence wakes you.  Straw catches on top and brown leaves all summer.  Underneath, spiders take the [...]

As my father and I walked to the old town, I kept my head up and back, so much that the stars were dizzying and I couldn’t at times keep straight to the road.  Next week in Cincinnati, the sky would be pink with light only a few stars could burn through, and the moon [...]

Look for volunteer peanuts along the plowed edges.  Volunteers come up first and are usually ready in mid to late August.  The runners set down by a seeder and lined in rows have a few weeks yet.  Pull up four or five plants, shake off the dirt, and throw them on the tailgate with roots [...]

It is cool this morning, but shouldn’t be. Cool mornings don’t happen in South Georgia until late September. It is still August, but the Atlantic storms have gone west and northeast. What has been left in the vacuum, a dry wind sluicing down from Canada. And it is beautiful here – the trees, the expanse [...]

All night there has been sheet lightning from the tropical storms and hurricanes that keep circling Georgia, heading further north or west – Claudette, Bill – none have come here directly, but the remnants of clouds and rain stirred out of the Atlantic and the Gulf form sheet lightning, wide reflections of light that flash [...]

It’s a phenomenon here like everywhere, towns whose identity becomes solely tied to highway travelers.  What I call Interstate Cities.  I-75 runs north and south right through the center of Georgia, and along its exits, you’ll find this.  Fifteen miles away from where I grew up is one of those towns, Cordele, a stop-off place [...]

One time when I was thirteen, not long after we’d come out of a field, a rattler was right on the center yellow line and saw us, heard our truck, or maybe it felt the tires coming, could sense the heat of the engine.   It coiled up to strike, that rattler out-beating my heart.  My [...]

For over a week in South Georgia, moments of solitude become stretches of listening to the wind stir pines. I had talked with someone about this before – her father had owned acres and acres of pines on the coastal plains going toward St. Simons Island – pulpwood harvesting is one of the main cash [...]

Tonight, walking into the house my father built in the 1960s, has left me with a sense of want and weight. The weight of a place, its air and earth, as if certain places on this earth have more weight than others, pulls at us wherever we are—whether 800 miles or 3,000 miles away—this I [...]