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Mountain Bride

11/13/07

Mountain Bride

Permalink 03:51:18 pm by cassie, Categories: Memories

Life is busy, times are good, I am loved and employed and well fed and very, very content.

I work, I come home, I clean my house and kiss my Mark when he returns from work and I'm not sure what I did before all this. School is no longer a part of my life and I wonder how it went so fast. Instead of thinking on this too long, I snuggle up into my blankets and warm myself with tea and my feet on the steaming baseboards. Such a funny life, really. I know this is the nature of everything in my life right now, that is, being married for not quite a year, working a new job that pays well, having no kids and no real pressing responsibilities other than paying our bills and reading our Bibles. But even so, even with all those funny little things, even with the late nights and opposite work schedules and long commutes, I am just enjoying so much this quietness and calmness and sweetness. Life is cozy and interesting.

Mark makes me laugh a million more ways than I could ever count, I bend over backwards to do the stupid silly things that make him laugh, forgetting everything I've ever vowed to myself I would not do to make a boy happy. I guess what I'm saying is that I thought I loved Mark when I married him. I even thought I loved him when he first asked me to date him, but I didn't know, didn't have any idea the potential or the catalyst that marriage could be. I mean, I just did not know how much more I could love him over time. I loved him romantically, I loved him as my friend. But now, I just don't know. I love him in some funny other way that just feels like home. He is home, my other half. Like I'm not sure how much Whole there could have been before him.

Like I said, content.

A few minutes ago, after I took out my little potroast from the fridge and nestled it lovingly among some potatoes and onions in the crockpot, I spent a few minutes relaxing with a lit book I had for the second college class I took back in the day, when I was but a wee child, really. In it, I found wonders of poems I hadn't read in literal years, probably not since I took the class in 1998. So much of the book is crappy - multicultural doublespeak and essays trying too hard to prove a point, with none of the beautiful, gentle subtlety of words that makes language so versatile and wonderful. But amongst the over-verbose rambles and brambles of some pages, I re-discovered some really incredible poetry and prose. The poem I'll leave off with was one of my favorites at the time I first read it, maybe because it's beautiful but still quite a bit morose. I find myself, even today, stunned by the simplicity and quietness and beauty of the words, the haunting sadness, almost as if a mountain man, in simple, quiet honesty, were telling it himself. These are the things that make me curl up inside, on my quiet couch in my quiet house, smelling the curls of cookingsmells from my kitchen and loving the whole and entirety of life.

"Mountain Bride"

They say Revis found a flatrock
on the ridge just
perfect for a natural hearth,
and built his cabin with a stick

and clay chimney right over it.
On their wedding night he lit
the fireplace to dry away the mountain
chill of late spring and flung on

applewood to dye
the room with molten color while
he and Martha that was a Parrish
warmed the sheets between the tick

stuffed with leaves and its feather
cover. Under that wide hearth
a nest of rattlers,
they?ll knot a hundred together,

had wintered and were coming awake.
The warming rock
flushed them out early.
It was she

who wakened to their singing near
the embers and roused him to go look.
Before he reached the fire
more than a dozen struck

and he died yelling her to stay
on the big four-poster.
Her uncle coming up the hollow
with a gift bearham to days later

found her shivering there
marooned above a pool
of hungry snakes,
and the body beginning to swell.

17 comments

Comment from: Jen [Visitor] Email
JenCassie, I love being home, listening to the washing machine (MY washing machine) spin around, and Tom watching hockey while I knit next to him. It's peaceful and lovely.

Unlike your poem there, which is terribly morbid.
11/13/07 @ 16:49
Comment from: cassie [Member]
cassiehehe. I know. It's still terribly expressive with very few words and not much in the way of lyrical finery.

:)

It's nice having a washing machine too, isn't it? That's one of my favorite things about our apartment here is having our own. :) I like your description as well. So lovely.
11/13/07 @ 17:40
Comment from: Sarah [Visitor] Email
SarahCass, you were right! I shivered and shivered, and it was beautiful.
11/14/07 @ 06:20
Comment from: chera [Visitor] Email
cheraI swear, you and Jen make such cute little wives. It makes me almost want to get married just to have what you guys have. :-)

(Of course, if that is to happen, I have to find me a man first.If you know any cute unattached Christian boys, send them this way, will ya?)
11/14/07 @ 18:21
Comment from: Charlie [Visitor] Email
CharlieJust wait, soon you'll be viewing "Till death do us part" as a goal.
11/14/07 @ 19:48
Comment from: sj [Visitor] Email
sjHa... Chaz. I miss you.

But, um, I have to say, that while I do see why you like this poem, it is a skosh disturbing.
11/14/07 @ 20:38
Comment from: Mom [Visitor] Email
MomThat's a nice story.
11/15/07 @ 05:13
Comment from: cassie [Member]
cassieHA!

Mum always knows the one thing to say that will make me laugh. :P
11/15/07 @ 05:34
Comment from: heidi [Visitor] Email
heidiugh you're so morbid. ugh

but i do like a good roast and potatoes.
so, i guess this post evens out.
11/15/07 @ 09:20
Comment from: Mista A. [Visitor] Email
Mista A. The pot roast sounds good. But the poem left me a bit disappointed. I was hoping for a poem about beavers.
11/15/07 @ 18:48
Comment from: Tessa [Visitor]
TessaDad, please.

Cassie, I don't even know.
11/17/07 @ 18:14
Comment from: Mom [Visitor] Email
Momthis one makes me teary-eyed:

Come listen to a story,
Bout a man named Jed.
Poor mountaineer,
Barely kept his family fed.
Then one day,
He was shootin' at some food; when
Up through the ground,
Came a bubblin' crude.
Oil that is
Black gold
Texas tea.

Well the next thing you know,
Old Jed's a millionaire.
Kin folks said,
"Jed move away from there." Said,
"Californie' is the place you otta be",
So he loaded up the truck,
And moved to Beverly.
Hills that is
Swimmin' pools
Movie stars.
11/19/07 @ 11:14
Comment from: Cassie [Visitor] Email
CassieOh, whatever, Ma. :P
11/19/07 @ 16:38
Comment from: Charlie [Visitor] Email
CharlieAwwwwwwww...gay...
11/20/07 @ 20:34
Comment from: Heidi [Visitor]
Heidiwhoa, chaz? are you talkin about being gay again?? Josh is REALLY starting to wonder why you talk about that so much. i mean, im trying to back you up here man, but you're not helping me out at all!
11/20/07 @ 22:07
Comment from: Charlie [Visitor] Email
CharlieJosh is gay.
11/21/07 @ 13:23
Comment from: Mom [Visitor] Email
MomChaz is filled with rage.
11/21/07 @ 16:19
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I like to multi-task: wife, writer, nurse, Christian, ne'er do well. I do all with equal gusto.

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