The Shade Tree Hoist

Abstract

The Shade Tree Hoist Maurice Manning (bio) The second song was two together,a blackbird and a mocker mingled,a holler caw and echo rustle—yet, strangely, still half-night,no light—I was still asleep,at a still-point in my dream, waitingfor what Snooks Lyttle had saidabout the other song—the first one—to hear his voice begin and thento hear my own fall in behind him,so I went back to farther backin the dream of the tree and everyonecoming home, and there I was—a warm day closing out,the bottom cooling off, and fogrising from the ribbon of riverunstrung and loose below the hillswhich fetched up like a row of kneespoked into the rosy sky:I'd walked away from the sun to shadows,but at sundown I wandered back to the treeand there she sat about ten feet up,Aunt Clara was perched in the pecan tree,her eyes as bright as polished brass,and she said, Hidy, Hidy, Child!and smiled and cackled, and then I sawsome guinea hens were roosted, too,their flecks and specks were glowing outlike little stars in little heavens,and a low voice said, Whoa, Mule—and there he was, Snooks Lyttle,straw hat and overalls,and his right hand held a ropeand at the other end of the rope [End Page 40] was a mule I recognized named Suze.She flicked a long ear at meand shuffled her teeth; Snooks droppedthe rope and Suze backed out the branchand a loop, like a pulpit blossom, bloomedin the plow line and snatched my foot:I rose and tottered in the air.Aunt Clara slapped her thigh and said,Hit's only whar a feller gits—and, Honey, you done got home!Hit aint too fer to git up here,to the poor folks patch of Heaven!My face was glazed in wonderment:she'd died and risen to the tree,my Aunt Clara about a hundredor so, and Snooks Lyttle, too,and not much younger, and Suze the mule,and six or seven guinea hens,and all around the wild landrolled and let the night fogloose, and Snooks said, Well,we fixin to sing you up—you ready?And he took off his hat and saltwas flaked in a ring around his head,and soon his old voice moanedand rose; the branches trembled and Suzeshook from her withers, buckles and leathertinkled and squeaked, and the heavens whirledlike God's machine around the tree,and I was a whole man for once,for I was home and everyonewas coming, too, in a stream, in a sweepof the branches up, my people raisedin the night of a black man's voice.And I remember going up,how Suze eased out the branch but pausedto let me sip the midnight airand swing for a moment in the deep,green dome, like the clapper of a bell. [End Page 41] Maurice Manning Maurice Manning's aunt, Clara Burchell, lived her entire life in Clay County, Kentucky, and died in 1990 at the age of 108. Manning grew up in Danville in close touch with Eastern Kentucky kin. His fourth book, just released, is The Common Man. He lives outside Perryville, Kentucky, and teaches at Indiana University and the Warren Wilson MFA Program. Copyright © 2010 Berea College