Michael,

Peace is everywhere descending this Hallowed evening.   Here in the west, my sweetie and I celebrate a delicious evening playing late Italian Renaissance music together after a happy day of bedding in garden plants for winter, and reminiscing old times while unpacking, sorting and sifting though 30 years worth of treasure and debris boxes in the garage.   Sleepy magic evenings with my little boy of thirty years ago come to wakeful memory while discovering childhood books we shared together in the giant snugly arm chair of the mountain top fire lookout, surrounded by the same stars and love you share so beautifully this evening.

Happy Halloween Indeed.

Thank you.

cp
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: [log in to unmask] 
  To: [log in to unmask] 
  Sent: Sunday, October 31, 2004 9:13 PM
  Subject: Re: [BP] a Halloween ride


  The long  ride home, 

  a Halloween ride 

   

  Tonight ; in the still  air of a warm  Halloween  night  little 4 yr old Mary and I refused  a ride home from the party  and  boarded the back of a open  cotton wagon  pulled by a team of  jacks known as Trig and Algebra.

  Trig and Algebra know the way home ; but its not by any car route.

  No sir this is a well worn route traveled before the advent of the automobile; across country so known for its long cotton  bottoms and hilly forests of hardwood.

  A country rugged in mystery and time 

   

  So when my  teamster friend offered us the ride  I and my little costumed fairy princess  were only  to happy to oblige him .  



  We clamored  aboard the back and nestled into a stacked  bed of fresh cotton letting the jacks  Trig and Algebra begin their melodic rhythm for the long way home .

   

  Peanut  made herself comfortable and  cradled to my arm

  With her sack of candy  treasures tucked safely away we began the journey down soft dirt tracks  into the bucolic vastness of the country .

  Like gypsies we giggle and sing silly songs into the night air as a  canopy of stars swirls overhead .



  Mary is  dressed the  fairy princess for her party complete   with tiara and gossamer wings; while  her Daddy, a  willing chaperone, poses as the pirate king   with   black eye patch and red kerchief. 

   

  Our Galleon is a old one of  wood and leather harness.

  We  sail into this  night of stars bonded by our love since her birth .

  . Journeying  to the mythical  kingdom  of  little girls and  their daddy's. 

  An Island of dreams and hopes  beyond the boundary of  time and death ; 

  A journey once begun goes on forever . 

   

  Our  bond  is our rudder .

   

  Tonight ,the eve of all hallows   we will navigate the star fields  of old Dixie     through a nocturnal paradise of  field and stream . 

   

  Standing on a blanket of cotton we  tear some scraps  letting  them drift aloft like royal rafts carrying our wishes to new frontiers  as they float into the  dark  abyss of the  velvet night  .

   

  There is no predicability in our journey . 

  Hoot owls startle us and a  chorus of lazy crickets serenade us .

  We are   spooked into the turn by a family of  white tails who scamper into the  cypress swamp and  disappear into a low fog .

   

  Our fickle friend the moon  arrives  late .

  Appearing blood red she  dances  the horizon and  plays  to the  ancient corn Gods  before she  goes  pumpkin orange  in a steady rise  that blossoms  from  soft yellow,  into a brilliant  white  . 

   

  She hangs the sky and dazzles the princess and I  in a radiant abundance of lunar glow .

  Her light travels the fields and chases the dark .

   

  Deep into the fields our fairy galleon travels  . 

  Trig and Algebra hold the rhythm to an intoxicating beat  of hoofs hitting the  soft clay as our cotton barge  navigates the  dips and turns of the haunting  terrain  .

   

    Resting her head on Daddies chest we stare out  at the great divide of field and forrest   and watch the rich black earth and the abundant cotton  become a  celestial  sea of  bright angelic down .   

   As far as the eye can see  the illuminated  cloud   blankets  the land  inviting us to walk across it as the prophets did in the glory the Old Testament. . 

   

  With our backs on soft beds we watch the little lights of distant farms flicker in and out of view as we  point to  planets and call out the constellations 

    

   Ponds and  forests  of hardwood  dot  our passage as we dip into sunken roads beneath the grade of the field . 

  Upon soft needles we look up to see the gnarly  trunks of trees with   the stars beyond .

  Bats dodge overhead and leafs of gold and crimson  litter the barge. .

   

  We go  from darkness to light , from sunken road to field,  in a series of passes like some magical initiation to enter the realm of  middle kingdom. 

   

  My princess snuggles my arm and is fast asleep . Onward pulls our galleon as the  steads keep pace . The kingdom is near. 

  It is secreted by little girls and guarded by pirate daddies, 

  a place of dreams that is remembered yet forgotten when that not to far off day arrives, an ordinary day  when lunar castles and pirate kings suddenly are no longer needed  and our fairy wings were  only  make believe.

  Until then ,

   

  Happy Halloween  Pirates        

   

  Michael