I looked back, through my father's eyes, to the time of his Mississippi childhood. There, I found red-clay fields and weedy mule pastures, piecing the gullied landscape together, like an old tattered quilt. Adjoining, were vast timbered hills, shoved together as if they had stumbled into a crowded heap; the last summit powerfully withholding the great mounds behind, as it looms over the sunken Yazoo delta.
The endless evacuation of swollen aquifers, spawns a clear sandy creek, where the beavers taste every tree along its forested banks. Restless water babbles across formations of clay and sandstone until it falls from between the hills, out into the Mississippi delta. The once winding creek becomes a straight arrow that cuts through black alluvial soil to become a muddy tributary into the Great River.
Yellow cats and dog-fish grinnel lay low in the murky waters of countless cypress lakes which are scattered across the ancient seabed like puddles after a heavy rain.
Black and white, sore-fingered pickers, drag overstuffed sacks through cockle burrs and cotton stalks. Their backs bowed from sun up till dark; almost too weary to go on, but too hungry to stop.
Upstream, in the highland of broom sage meadows, there is a wooded hollow; and peacefully nestled along the south ridge, is a hamlet of humble dwellings. It's folk are the uncomplicated sort. So distant from the rest of the world that they lack the convenience of electricity, but close enough to feel the pain of war that holds their men captive.
Old people, too feeble to fight, but strong enough for everything else, are left there to guide and protect the young ones.
Mommas work tirelessly in fields, wash tubs and cook pots, while calling out to their wandering brood.
Dirt is the basic toy of barefoot children as they pat mud pies and play hand-me-down games scribbled in the dust.
This 'Coming of Age' story spans almost three decades after the Great Depression where a young family grows up in the innocence, and foolishness of spiritual blindness.
Their seemingly simple lives, filled with fun and laughter, takes a drastic turn as they face family hardships and then deep tragedy. They find themselves unable to make sense out of it all, but God uses the tragedy in their lives to shake them out of darkness. Their gradual awakening, sparks a flame that sets the hills on fire.
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