Yards (Part Three)

The back lot was my portal to the woods. The woods surrounding this yard were lush, green, deciduous, purring woods, full of crickets, katy-dids, snakes, turtles, lizards, skunks, raccoons, and stray cats. I slipped away into the downstream side of these woods as often as time and weather allowed. I played long hours following the creek as far as I dared. I was often distracted by a deep pool, not quite big enough to be a swimming hole, around which turtles sometimes gathered to bathe in the filtered light. Turtles were the first animals I ever saw mating. As often as I followed the creek, I took new steps inches at a time. It was years before I finally saw the confluence with Savage Creek. I usually played in the woods alone, but when I was about 9 my father and brother and I walked through the woods further than I had ever gone before. For most of the walk we seemed to be deep in woods, far from the developed world, though we were probably no more than a quarter mile from the nearest house. At one point we could hear the rattle and diesel of bulldozers, through the trees I could see their bright yellow pushing around piles of red dirt. The smell of fresh sap and earth was overpowering.


As we skirted past the encroachment we came upon something I wonder about to this day. The poles were covered in fluffy dark green moss, the kind that grows on the ground, they leaned against each other in stolid opposition to time and bulldozers. 5 points of a star were the ends of the poles on the ground, the high ends met and crossed near the top. I was caught up in wonder about who would have left a teepee frame in the woods. I grabbed my dad's hand and asked him who had lived there. "I don't know," was all I got. I could see the shadow of an old Indian, a craggy faced, gray haired Creek warrior, living out his days in peaceful resistance, alone, the last of his kind, all the rest having been marched off to Oklahoma. Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee was thick in the air at that time. Billie Jack was demanding respect one roundhouse kick at a time. They could not escape the romantic mind of a 9 year old in love with the living world and the mysteries of hidden history.