Some French girls have shown upt in camp and chaos has broken out,I am
sending this for the second time sorry if its a repeat,,,more later as things
get settled down...

The following is from notes taken in   my restoration journal....it is about
stonemasons in the
Mississippi Delta ..the best way to enjoy it is to download to the printer
and read at your leisure..Best
Michael 2000

In the early morning gloom Ida the old black cook is by the river gathering
herbs.She is wearing all
white muslin dress and sporting a red kerchief piled high on her head.
The river moves lazily past her as she works the banks barefoot.With a
culinary eye for wild onion and
dandelion  she carefully picks for poke salads and herbs for  fish plates.
.She already has some okra tied at the waist. She will use that to thicken
the rue for the etoufee and
gumbo.
  The red dust of the clay covers her toughened feet and a broad smile of
large ivory teeth greet the
french crew with a lovely "bon jour" as they join her near our camp.
Ida is creole and she pat te quai 's an old french rarely heard anymore.
The French guys are charmed with her timeless west -African beauty and enjoy
her company.
 Ida in turn will cook up catfish creole style and talk in the old french to
them.

"Be very hot today...(trois chaud ojerdi) she says with her large eyes and
coal black skin.(Tro0is trois
chaud)... Very hot indeed.
With that she stops still and stares over the mens shoulder as if she has
seen the devil.
Everyone turns and then fall silent as they watch a very large water mocassin
glide lazily down stream
agmonst the star lilly pads and gigantic horsetail.

The water mocassin is king in his world and fears nothing.  He arches his
head regally left and right
pulling S curves behind his long 6 foot body.
All   stare in awe as he makes his approach past us.He is king and dosen't
mind who lnows it.
Suddenly the mocassin halts and jerks  his body a full two feet out of the
water and looks our way with
open fangs as if to stike.
Fear srrikes our hearts but before we can move the snake is ripped downwards
in a violent splash and
bubbles of fierce undercurrent.... never to be seen again..
Le tortu... Le tortu(...turtle)
Ida exclaims.pointing at the bubbles and making a  gesture with both arms
joined as to the snapping
turtles  possible  size..
..
The men are dumbfounded and reconsider the location of their wash up..
the bubbles continue but then slow as the birds  pick up  their song.
and a red ball of fire  breaks the still horizon of the savannah.
Ida was right it promised to be a very hot day.

                                                                 DELTA
The sun the god Bel mounts his chariot and carrys the flaming ball to its mis
day meridian over the
Mississippi delta. There he prepares his anvil and for a solid four hours
beats the delta in a tympanium
of hot driven solar flare that bakes and pulverizes the earth to dust causing
the blacken soil
 to yawn and split open like bloated road kill.
The heat beats us unmercifully; the road kill fuses with the tarmac and we
are all one under the wings
of wretched vultures who soar and spin in fetid updrafts of decomposition and
swamp.

The heat is blinding and stupifying as we haul stone to the scaffold.
Sweat streams from our naked chests collecting in pools at the groin and
wetting the curvature of  our
backsides.
Our minds and mouths choke with hot stonedust as the great god beats his
anvil  higher in the sky.
.
By the eleventh hour even the ants have taken heed and have constucted tiny
tunnels of dust in which
to carry on their business.
 Like the ants we too struggle with makeshift tarps desparte  for a piece of
shade.

We accomplish this with a canopy using  two by fours as a lean to.
There in the meager shade the banker masons can pound the rock with their
heavy breaking hammers
admist a chorous of cicadas and the clinking of the boaster chisels.

The setters carry the beat by  scraping  their mortar pans with their trowels
and singing  out
 for more stone,
 more mud,
 and the water bearer.

The humble water bearer appears with his gold tooth that catches the sun and
dazzles thirsty eyes
Thirst is a religious experience.
In life we thirst for many things.Fame ,power, money, sex.
But basic thirst is king in an enviroment that requires the body to consume
one gallon of water an
hour.
The water carrier is a nut brown child of the aztecs  and like the shamans
before him his apperance to the thirsty men.
transforms capital  wants to spiritual wants of renewal.
 In thirsty eyes he is the life giver .... The redeemer.
In a few more hours of blinding thirst he could be the very messiah himself.

Their parched souls are refreshed by his presence as he takes the communal
cup and draws forth
from the portable spigot of  cool artesian water.
Humbly they  accept his gift of salvation ,
 giving  thanks and  lifting the cup and  letting the cool smell of the water
tweak and excite  the
nostrils.
They take its contents gratefully.as if it were rewards of the afterlife.
They stare  heavenwards as the cool  water runs down and breaks the dryness
at the back of the
throat  and making  rivlets stream   down the hard  stubble of their  chins.
There are brief inaudiable exhales of relief and sighs of satisfaction.

The second and third swallows restore consciousnesss and humor.
Gone is the thick tounge and flinty look of submission.
Flagging spirits are uplifted,
The setters smile and joke with the mud man and the banker masons.
They pause and  are made whole again.
The tempo off tools and hammers pick up again and
are joined by song birds of warbler and wood thrush
the whole morning  chorus of clatter continues in the rising heat;and the
raising of the stone.Ida was right. It was a hot one.