Motto: Writers Helping Writers
Text Box: Again! Again! © 2006 by mark r. watters Over Daddy’s arm she’d spin, face full of hair, “Again! Again!” A flight of faith from atop the bed, careful not to bump her head. Running round the Dragon Trail; playing pirates in ships a-sail; dinosaurs alive and well; sharing secrets we’d never tell. Reading stories, ideas swell; hand-in-hand to get the mail; in thrashing snow, she slipped and fell - Oh, well. Singing songs of “I believe…” green eyes wide for all to see; never doubting, always free, Kristyn, Mommy, and me. Riding shoulders, she reaches high ignoring limits, she will try and try again, again she’ll try to reach beyond the sapphire sky.

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Motto: Writers Helping Writers

Rome Area Writers

“Writings”

By Mark Watters
Text Box: Frustration sometimes tagged along, to sour sweetness in her song. I wiped away her salty tears and whispered softness in her ears. Again I whisper. Again she hears. She’s grown up now. Time to let go. But how? I grasp the brittle, broken branch. I clutch my sunken chest. My heart pounding with bitter-sweetness. Nothing rhymes anymore. She takes his hand and looks at me. I wipe away her salty tears and whisper softness in her ears, “Again! Again!” Text Box: Moment of Truth (Excerpt) The spring of 1863 echoed the angry sounds of combat from the fields of Virginia. Rejuvenated by victories at Fredericksburg at the close of ’62 and Chancellorsville in May, Southern high command revisited the objectives, and the promise, of the Maryland Campaign. By June, Lee’s juggernaut again appeared invincible. Lee marched his army north, desperate to take the fight away from an impoverished, torn Virginia and to unhinge the North’s war efforts, perhaps convince European powers to ignore Union naval blockades, despite Lincoln’s Proclamation of Emancipation. Hopes were high that a Southern victory on Northern ground would compel a war-weary North to sue for peace. Not since Manassas had morale been as supreme. Jacob stood in the door of Dunkard Church and watched as Southern soldiers marched northward along the Hagerstown Pike, scene of unparalleled combat just eight months earlier. The sight was eerily familiar. He thought of his childish pursuit of a Springfield rifle and the dead soldier from whom he had acquired it. He thought about the savagery in the fields before him and the storm within Hog Trough Road, about Sergeant Thomas Rushin, about Bull Stokes and Tucker McGavin, about his coin, about Bigun, and about the Rebel battle flag. He thought about the blood, the bones, the bullets flying, the bursting of Pandora’s Box on the land of his home, indeed, his very house. He wiped his forehead. He thought about Roswell, wrapped in the promise of a flag, drawn to his own adventure. His physical wound suffered in the Bloody Lane had healed, its only evidence a jagged, circular scar. A Yankee for whom he had held no malice shot him down that maniacal September morning. He thought about the irony of the survival of his flesh and the death of his spirit, his heart. He thought about darning needles and Rachael, about Sergeant Brooks. Rachael was gone, only the Lord knew where, married to Benjamin Franklin Brooks. For Jacob, this was the wound worse than bullets. Bigun, Jesse, and their two children had packed their sparse belongings in an Isaac Hoffman-made wagon and journeyed north to Boston. Jacob kept in his pocket a letter written by Bigun, his first, telling of his adventures as a freed man out of the reach of soul drivers. Bigun spoke of joining a black regiment at Camp Meigs, Readville, Massachusetts. Jacob squinted and peered at the gray cloud obscuring the afternoon sun, its rays blasting out all around the cloud’s edges, defying containment. Jacob smiled. Jacob walked the roads and fields of the Sharpsburg battlefield day after day. His emotional gravity took him each time to Hog Trough Road and to his memories of Rachael. This was their road, Hog Trough. Now it belonged to history, a memorial to the men who fought here, their blood its coronation. As he stood and gazed along its length, Jacob knew God had a purpose for him. No other explanation satisfied the questions of his deliverance from such a din of violence, of Rachael’s deliverance from him. Jacob kicked pebbles and soldiers’ rusted tins and bent to pick up smashed bullets and other debris ignored by souvenir hunters in the battle’s wake. The road was calm again, as it had always been before, its fences rebuilt. Jacob wept for the poor souls destroyed that day, futures shot away, the brave men of both armies struck down in a flash of time, a moment of truth. Near the road’s apex, the point where he fought with the Sixth Alabama, Jacob stopped and stared across the fields of corn. Here, Jacob thought. I’ll bury it here. The next day, Jacob rose before the sun. He and Isaac had an order of two wagons to deliver by three o’clock, but there was time. He heated day-old coffee and gulped the steaming liquid as fast as his throat allowed. He looked up the stairs for a moment and sighed. In his room, Jacob opened the dower chest, swept away cobwebs, and removed the mahogany box. He opened the box and checked its contents one last time. The box contained the essence of what Jacob was and what he had become. A few cats’ eyes. A broken antler-handle knife. A gold coin, dented. “Buy an adventure,” Jacob said with a laugh, a rush of emotion pushing a tear to his eye. A string-bound fascicle of Emily Dickinson’s poems, given to Rachael with a shrug of dissatisfaction by Rachael’s cousin. Jacob held the volume in his palm. “Rachael,” he said, “this is the essence of who you were, the spirit I too often ignored.” One of Rachael’s paint brushes, blotched with dried red paint. “This brush you used to paint your sunset scenes,” Jacob observed as he tucked it snug against the box’s wall. “And so it was.” Flowers of dried jasmine, three four-leaf clovers, one black-eyed Susan. “These I’ll place inside Miss Emily’s book. Poetry should be pretty, you always said. And a bit lucky.” A folded note written by Jacob. “For history.” Jacob lowered the lid and closed the latch. He brushed both palms across its top, like a coffin. He reached under his mattress and removed the bloodstained, bullet-torn Rebel battle flag he had used to field-dress his wound. With gentle respect, he spread the flag open on his bed and placed the box upside down in the middle. He wrapped the flag around the box, its center star shining center-top of the box. Jacob gave a deep sigh and turned to go downstairs. “Where you headed, son?” Isaac asked as he dressed. “Out,” Jacob replied. “Out? Out where?” “I’ll be back in a while. Biscuits and coffee on the table.” “We got those wagons to deliver,” Isaac said. “Don’t want to be late.” “We won’t. Deliveries are always on time,” Jacob replied with a smile. A long hour later, Jacob set the box on the north embankment of Hog Trough Road, near the apex. He took his shovel and cut the earth two square feet deep. He flung chunks of dirt aside, stopping briefly to wipe the summer sweat. He set down the shovel on the embankment and watched Roulette work the fields through which thousands of Union soldiers had charged and died. He placed the box in the hole, in the middle of the road, and returned the dirt. “Done,” he said. “Time to heal.” Jacob Hoffman hoisted the shovel onto his shoulder. He stood erect and gave a salute as he stared down the length of the road. “To you, fine soldiers of gray and blue. May you bury your past, as I have buried mine.” Jacob turned and began his slow trek home. No going back now, he thought, as he glanced over his shoulder at the site one last time. Bloody lane. Text Box: Windows By Mark R. Watters December, 2004 Once upon a time, there was a family. Mommy and Daddy loved their baby girl and cherished the days of her infancy and innocence. The baby crawled across the hardwood floors and carpets and past doors and windows as she discovered her world. One day, the baby girl tried to pull up to stand on her wobbly legs. She was excited by the possibility, two nubs of teeth gleaming in the light. She grabbed a chair arm and pulled. Her tiny muscles tightened in her tiny arms, and determination flashed in her sapphire eyes. Her fingers strained as she inched closer to an upright, bowlegged stance. She lapped her lips – and melted to the floor. This attempt, while not successful, gave way to another. She latched onto the sofa and pulled up. Her eyes glimmered and her tiny voice laughed with accomplishment. The next day, filled with exploratory curiosity, she gripped a windowsill and pulled up. She glimpsed her emerging realization of a world filled with trees and plants and flowers, all dancing in the blue breeze of March. She giggled with glee at the sight of a bouncing butterfly. Fingerprints of peanut butter smeared the window glass. Mommy offered to take the baby girl outside. Daddy said playfully, “Bye-bye, sweet girl. Come home soon!” Time dissolved like sugar in water, and the memories grew sweeter. Mommy and Daddy told the baby girl everyday how quickly she was growing and becoming a little girl, able soon to walk and run and jump and discover. She wanted to be a little girl now. Soon, the toddler became a little girl, able to walk and run and jump and discover. She loved pretend play with her Mommy and Daddy and friends as they scampered through the house and in the yard. One day, before a nap, the little girl looked out her window and heard the laughter of big girls playing. They seemed filled with excitement and fun as they pedaled their bikes down neighborhood streets. If only she were big enough for bike rides on neighborhood streets. She pressed her nose against the window glass. She wanted to be a big girl. Time dissolved like sugar in water, and the memories grew sweeter. Mommy and Daddy told the little girl everyday how quickly she was growing and becoming a big girl, able soon to ride bikes and jump ropes and climb trees and hang on monkey bars and spin summersaults. She wanted to be a big girl now. Daddy offered to take the little girl to the park to play and to watch the big girls. Mommy said playfully, “Bye-bye, sweet girl. Come home soon!” In the blink of a hazel eye, the little girl became a big girl, able to ride bikes and jump ropes and climb trees and hang on monkey bars and spin summersaults. The big girl became more responsible and earned an allowance for chores performed beyond her expected household duties. She learned respect. She developed compassion for others and participated in charitable activities. One night, after finishing all her homework, she poured a glass of milk and walked to the living room window, taking sips along the way. Mom and Dad were busy with adult stuff. She wiped milk from her lips and condensate from the glass and gazed out the window. She thought about a particular boy. She sipped her milk and smiled. In the blink of an emerald eye, the big girl became a young woman, yearning for her own identity, dating, listening to any music except her parents’, ignoring curfews, making excuses, and thinking about college. The young woman struggled with her hard-learned convictions of morality and compassion and responsibility and sometimes strayed from their courses. Mom and Dad worried about this young woman, their baby. One night, as the young woman came home late from her date, she closed the front door and rested her nose and hands against the window. She sighed. The world outside these doors and windows was vibrant and exciting and filled with possibilities. Home was cozy, but tepid, predictable. She sat on her bed amid treasured, tattered reminders of her childhood. She loved her room, her home, but the world pulled her with the gravity of its orbit. She thought about the opportunities ahead for her. The moon shone full through her windows. Mom and Dad lay sleepless in their bed this night, thankful their daughter, at last, was home and safe. Time dissolved like sugar in water, and the memories grew sweeter. One day, the time came for the young woman to go away to college in a faraway town. A horn beeped. The young woman turned her head toward the window and waved acknowledgement to her ride. She pushed up on the chair arm and ambled toward the door, her shoulder bag firm under her arm. She was excited, her thoughts already out the door. She gave Mom and Dad a hug and kiss and trotted toward the car. The young woman waved and smiled, her mind focused on coming adventures. Mom and Dad watched through a window smudged with the fingerprints of a baby, the nose of a little girl, and the palms of a young woman. “Bye-bye, sweet girl. Come home soon,” whispered Mom and Dad.