Notice of Death: St. Martinville, Louisiana

[catelin]

The Bathing Pond
Harold Knight

Notice of Death: St. Martinville, Louisiana

Miss Evalene Cormier died in her seventy-sixth year, on a warm evening in June
watching fireflies on the front porch of her daddy's old house.

She never married so there are no children here to mourn her passing,
to recall apron strings, buttermilk pies, or the way she smiled with her eyes.

No one to testify to her kind spirit in the Mount Calvary Baptist Church
as the parishioners nod their heads and fan themselves in unison saying "Amen."

No one to know that as a young woman she'd disrobe without shame
to bathe in Ugly Pierre's pond, even when she knew he was always there watching.

No one to remember that she lay with him under the Flower Moon,
that she whispered how beautiful he was while he wept silent tears onto her lips.

There is no husband to lay a trembling hand to rest on the lace of her funeral gown,
loathe to return alone to the warm bed they shared for so many honey sweet years.

No one to understand why she never seemed right again after they found Ugly Pierre
dead in the woods, or why she hated her daddy so much.

There's nothing to say about Miss Evalene Cormier except that she loved watching fireflies.

Comments

[budhaboy.livejournal.com]

very nice.

When my wife was still in seminary (and about a year after) she would do guest gigs at these tiny, ancient rural churches in and around Louisville. Having utterly no interest in the services, I would almost always take time out to wander the obligatory boneyard.

While it was a testament to humanity to see a fifty year old headstone marking the death of some man, and the allusions to the wife and children he'd left behind. What ALWAYS broke my heart was seeing the places left for those he'd left behind still vacant...

[tully-monster.livejournal.com]

Even sadder, perhaps, are the family plots which record a woman dying forty years before her husband, with a row of little stones marking the graves of children who lived only a couple of years, the last bearing the same death date as its mother.

Catelin, was she a family member? A name on a headstone? Or just that painting and your own imagination?

[catelin.livejournal.com]

I think that's the much more common scenario. I know in my own family both of my great-grandfathers (and even the great-greats) married at least twice, both to very young women who died in their early twenties after having several children. As for the piece, I had been reading about public death notices in the old south and looking at some old depression era photographs of some. They used to post them up like fliers in public places. I was doing research for a short story I'm working on and this just came out as a little side venture...the perils of the procrastinating writer! I found the painting after I'd written it.

Oh, and welcome back, by the way. I'm glad you are still here. : )

[catelin.livejournal.com]

I love those tiny old churches that pepper the south. I could spend a whole summer just going through them...so much story fodder, I wouldn't even know where to begin.

Re:

[budhaboy.livejournal.com]

they pepper everywhere...

During the trip to Appalacia in which we bought the moonshine (http://www.livejournal.com/talkread.bml?itemid=433542), I was taken by one of our 'guides' to her family plot buried DEEP in the woods.

I hope I never forget that...