I've been working in East Central
Mississippi for the last month. Last week I went for a long ride south on Hwy
45 and west on Hwy 14. This barn is just south of Columbus on the east side of
Hwy 45. I knew when I got out to shoot that I would have to stand at the red
cattle gate, blocking my entrance to full discovery of the other side of the
barn. While I stood there, craning my neck, my camera sitting on the edge of
the red rail, I heard a voice holler behind me, but had no idea what had been
said. As I turned, there was a man on the passenger side of a pickup truck
waving his hat and again said something I could not understand. As I walked
toward the truck on the road, I heard him say, "Go on through the gate!
Take your time."
Man-oh-man the invitations I seem to
get because of my Nikon! Anyway I opened the gate with a feeling of reverence
that I always have when walking into my own shot. I kept shooting, the sky
brilliant blue, rusty tin so very red, and the hay golden. As I stepped across
the haphazardly scattered hay, left as though a trail for me and my worn Justin
cowboy boots to tramp, the late afternoon sun was hot against my back. Walking
casually around the backside of the barn, I became acutely aware of two things:
the smell of fresh cut hay and the steady drone of crickets...
I was nine-years-old when my
great-grandfather Pa Willis died in Tibbee, Mississippi, just a bit north from
where I stood at that moment. Although a young child, my memories of the
handful of times we visited the old farm remain vivid... catching lightening
bugs in ball jars with my cousins at dusk; the smell of butter being churned
when I woke up in the morning as I sleepily padded my way to the kitchen; the
way the air moved through the breezeway; the picture of one of the eleven
babies that Ma birthed, only that one little boy had died immediately after
being born... it always seemed strange to me; the way the screen door squeaked
every time it was opened; the way snuff juice dripped down the creases on each
side of Ma's mouth, toothpick to one side, as she sat in a white-washed
cane-back chair on the screened porch; the way the pigs came running when they
were slopped; the way the floor creaked when I walked into the old country
store where the Tom's cookie jar sat on the counter, its worn red top so
inviting, the Coke box against the wall, and the field visible out the back
door from the front; feeling so snug under the handmade quilts at night with
the lazy ceiling fan stirring the slight breeze coming through the open window,
the lull of frogs singing from the pond, and...
... the smell of fresh cut hay as the
crickets continued their lazy drone...
