I received a postcard today from a K. Satterfield in Berkeley, California with a picture of an elk cut and pasted from what looks like a magazine with a hand-written entry, “How long did he stand alone on Pike’s Road, due center, branched horns curling north?” I’m not sure I know the answer to the question, but I did wonder about it, admiring the red and yellow triangles pasted on the back of the card. K. Satterfield took care in sending this message, part of a weekly exchange amongst a list of poets.
The elk stands poised on the center of the highway. The edges of either lane appear hem-stitched in white. The road is empty. Not a car in sight. Why is the elk on Pike’s Road and what is it waiting for?
I am also waiting. Rain is coming from the northeast, rolling slowly into the parish. Birds hearing the same thing, call out to each other, anticipating a downpour as the skies begin to light. And crackle. The storm cannot be far away. It gets humid just when everything should be cooling down. The sky is dark and ponderous. Cars make their way to work. It’s Friday and everything can use a good soaking after a week’s worth of triple digits. One yellow leaf floats to the ground, then another. A breeze lifts the fronds of the ferns on the porch; mailboxes stand at attention. The Southern Oak across the street stretches its limbs. Suddenly everything gets quiet. Leaves rustle. Thunder marches closer. Lightning streaks the sky. Cassie, the cat, jumps into a rocking chair and sits next to me on the porch. Then she decides to stalk the marigolds and chews a blade of grass. I have been sitting here for more than an hour and I’m growing impatient. I hear signs and sounds of rain, but Mother Nature doesn’t deliver.
Isn’t that the way it is, the long wait for some new creative force that comes out of nowhere but was always there in the first place?
The elk and I are kin.
This evening I attended services at Temple B’nai Israel in Monroe, Louisiana. The rabbi noted that the birthday of Edna Ferber, author and writer of “Showboat,” had just passed. Her motto, he said, was “seize the day.” Somewhere between waiting and seizing, that’s where I must go.
