----- Original Message -----From: [log in to unmask] href="mailto:[log in to unmask]">Leland TorrenceTo: [log in to unmask] href="mailto:[log in to unmask]">[log in to unmask]Sent: Monday, November 01, 2004 05:57Subject: Re: [BP] a Halloween rideHello CP and Michael,What wonderful messages to read this morning. Here in Connecticut we had an unseasonably warm 70 degree day. Took a long walk through the woods that had been misted all day before. The willows are green, some yellow, the ash and birch are bare, the maples and hickories still in full glory, but with fewer leaves. Chestnut leaves spin like pin wheels. A big breakfast and then I go to clear brush and build the pyre to be lit later at night. I quiz Leland in Latin and proof read Edward's essay on Beowulf and revenge. We carve pumpkins and watch football. But as night comes there is melancholy. The boys are 11 and 12; they and their closest 20 friends would prefer the adults stay home. It is fun to see all the costumes, but there are those with just a heavy duty garbage bag. The bond fire is never lit. How fleeting it is: Michael is living the dream and for CP it is remembered and never forgotten, for me and Laura, despite the moon, the laughter and fun, a sad night.Best,Leland-----Original Message-----
From: Pre-patinated plastic gumby block w/ coin slot [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of [log in to unmask]
Sent: Monday, November 01, 2004 12:14 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [BP] a Halloween rideThe 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