Down to the lick log of summer, on a perfect September afternoon almost at the autumnal equinox—Clean. Blue. Cool, not too cold—I am urged to write about hot weather.

To write about Arkansas summer you have to have the animal memory of swelter, of low water, of dry sumps, of deer come close to the cow pond, of NO BURN signs everywhere.  

Years ago during the hottest summer on record, Phoenix simmered to a boil in its lovely tarmac, a bubble away from heatstroke, everywhere they were preaching Armageddon and using 115 degrees for proof.  That year, in the mountains with no air condition it was too hot to sleep close even with fans at the head and foot of the bed. Before 11am and after midnight you could be in the house. Apart from those hours, we stayed away as long as we could. Glory be for Harts’ grocery store, where we pushed a wire cart through the cans and bottles—15 minutes to choose a sponge, ½ hour for a soft drink chilled straight out of the cooler box. The hottest summer since Satan fell or so we thought. It sweated us. It may be that we were brown and swam it. May be that when we could, we stepped down from the cliff into the icy river water imagining ourselves Cherokee just passing through or Quapaw or settlers, learned long ago to make some peace with the heat. Winter was a rumor that summer. We searched for something cold and what we found was never cold enough. 

[The phrase "down to the licklog": slang relating to the second-to-last thing some cattle were made to do before they were slaughtered. It was an old rancher trick to take them to the salt lick and then to water to increase the weight before slaughter.]

This is the blog I swore I would never write because it would steal too much time from writing poetry. Then a friend suggested that I could use it to recommend books and post favorite quotes and pictures.  That didn’t seem time-consuming. So here is the first post.

 Nine Years After

It’s been nine years and a couple of weeks since Katrina blasted ashore in NOLA where my son lived in a converted bar in the 9th ward. I remember the days during and after as a scuffle of worry as our son was trapped in the city, lost, then found but what I remember after that was a trip to dig out what was left of his goods, gear, tackle and trim from a devastated city that resembled Beirut in 1990 more than its jaunty pre-storm self.

 September, 2005, Oh Yes Jesus

Driving in, we’re stunned by then-novel sight of houses with their tide lines, sidewalks crammed with bagged garbage, refrigerators stinking in the sun, their doors jawed open, a city bus abandoned in the median on St Cloud. We make our way through the semi-deserted streets to the apartment where we are hailed by some remaining neighbors come along to greet us. The stringy bicep, the tobacco-stained tooth and the rakish grin of America’s gulf coast surround us with this great city’s vernacular of hand-in-hand. Driving out hot and tired we retreat through the patrolled neighborhood taking with us our admiration for the stubbornness and returning joy of people who weathered it out, buoyed by the sound of gospel music from a house nearby, a full tabernacle choir wailing, someone chanting “Oh yes, Jesus. Oh Yes!’