As we drive straight home again, five hours crossing, you remember the moments when your father began to hum in the car. Passing an invisible ditch or bridge. Coming home to this far northern tent pole of Oklahoma. Not my mother then but a girl upright in the backseat. Temporary shelter on wheels with hard back book spine companions. You listened, on alert because your mother knew just when the homesickness would fade and the whistling begin and she signaled with a whisper. Soft grin on the preacher's face. Her nearly perfect husband.
We pass the familiar, identical sign on sturdy posts fashioned from local black lava stone that marks the state boundary and evokes this spoken story. History in a hymn like the sound of wind singing through the spokes of steering. Wheel held with my hands today that will likely outlive this telling. Script scribbled in the margins of bibles, your father making his itemized lists on a Saturday before he took to the pulpit on Sunday.
Today, cousins cross divides to stand on the concrete steps in the chill, enter the lobby. They are joined by other cousins. Open the door and see all the people.
We fill the entire middle section of the ample church, memorial testament for the last of your father's sisters, we process in from the basement of long tables of lettuce, flavored jello, black coffee, and sincerely whispered recollections. We float past the sweet coffin where your aunt's hands rest there, folded. Tiny, unpretentious gems on her fingers. Silver and gold worn from twisting. Hands that tenderly held all our faces. We sit in our pews, little pitchers of faith folded in squares like the ever-present paper envelopes for offerings.
In the choirsongs every name for whom she prayed nightly, recipes of corn and cinnamon.
Later, you pull your boots on to navigate the frozen cemetery. You are whistling by then. And now as we drive home, again. You in your turquoise teardrop earrings. There is remnant snow at the entrances to many of the ranches that we pass. Proud gate headers proclaim ownership at the entry to their earthly allotments of heaven. Ranches of dreams with sun pouring in like humming.
We pass the familiar, identical sign on sturdy posts fashioned from local black lava stone that marks the state boundary and evokes this spoken story. History in a hymn like the sound of wind singing through the spokes of steering. Wheel held with my hands today that will likely outlive this telling. Script scribbled in the margins of bibles, your father making his itemized lists on a Saturday before he took to the pulpit on Sunday.
Today, cousins cross divides to stand on the concrete steps in the chill, enter the lobby. They are joined by other cousins. Open the door and see all the people.We fill the entire middle section of the ample church, memorial testament for the last of your father's sisters, we process in from the basement of long tables of lettuce, flavored jello, black coffee, and sincerely whispered recollections. We float past the sweet coffin where your aunt's hands rest there, folded. Tiny, unpretentious gems on her fingers. Silver and gold worn from twisting. Hands that tenderly held all our faces. We sit in our pews, little pitchers of faith folded in squares like the ever-present paper envelopes for offerings.
In the choirsongs every name for whom she prayed nightly, recipes of corn and cinnamon.
Later, you pull your boots on to navigate the frozen cemetery. You are whistling by then. And now as we drive home, again. You in your turquoise teardrop earrings. There is remnant snow at the entrances to many of the ranches that we pass. Proud gate headers proclaim ownership at the entry to their earthly allotments of heaven. Ranches of dreams with sun pouring in like humming.
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