Book of Sketches - Jack Kerouac [6]
flash of lightning, the
stern tones of thunder
(the rattlebones of
bunder, the long buuk
braun roll of munder,
the far off hey - Call
of old poor sunder,)
— Ah South! of
which I read, as a
child, of coonskin caps,
Civil wars, piney woods,
brothers, dogs, morning
& new hope — Ah
South! Poor America!
The rain has been
falling a long time on
thee & on thy
history —
George hustles across
the road with a
bagful of his own
beer — a Grandet
of the Americas,
worse than Grandet!
he wears no miser’s
Puritan cap, or
gloves, but smoking
a harmless cigar —
the bulb shines sad
& lonely on the old
wood porch of the
South — I see it —
In the loam of
the Blake yard sweet
rain has soaked
in greens & flowers
& the grass, & in
the mud, & sends
up fragrances of
the new clean
eternal Earth —
Inside the low
roofed homey rosy
lit Blake home, see
the little family
there, bearing Time
in a rainy hour
in the silence of themselves
Leaves thin-shadow on
the wall — on the
mottled redbrick base
foundation — on the
wet variant tangled
weeds & up-sway
grasses of the yard —
Rain glitters in
little bark-pools
of the tree-trunk
— sweet cool night
& washed up, heavy
hanging vegetation
— Lights of passing
cars dance in the
drip-drops of the
awning — Little Paul
muses at the sofa
window, turns &
yells — “Why is
it cause, Daddy, why
is it cause?”
PANORAMIC CATALOG SKETCH OF BIG EASONBURG
(backyard)
From right 90° to left
rich brick house where kid
lives who rides pony thru tobacco
field, farmers say
“Come on, work in the barn”
& his father driving by says
“If you wanta work, that
barn is ready” & he gallops
away saying, “The hell
with work” & niggerfarmers
& pickaninnies in hotfield
chuckle & scratch heads —
Patrician little bitch he is —
his house has big TV antenna,
8 white gables, big
garage, swings, trucks,
Farmall tractor, white iron
lawnchairs, Bird houses
dog pens, clip’t shrubs, lawn,
basketball basket & pole,
— behind house we see
trees & pines of the forest
— a thin scraggle of corn
a 100 feet off — The
dreaming weedy meadow
— then the redroof outbuildings
of Andrews old
farm — with brick chimnies,
graywood built, ancient,
lost in trees which in clear
late afternoon make glady
black holes for the Sweeny
in the Trees dream of
children — distant rafts
of corn — then the tobacco
curing barn near a
stick ramp with piled
twigs or boughs & a redroof
porch, & a door, smoked,
at top,
tho still with old hay
hook for when it once
was a barn (?) — there
too black holes of green
woods — A brand new
flu-cure barn with white tin
roof, new wood, unpainted,
no windows — Then another
old one — over the yellowing
topleaves of the tobacco
field — then the majestic
nest of Great Trees where
homestead sits — darkshaded,
hidden, mystical & ripplylit,
hints of red roofs,
old gray dark wood,
poles, old chimney, still,
peaceful, mute, with
shadows lengthening along
barnwalls — The trees:
fluffy roundshaped except
for stick tree in middle
forking ugly up, & on
right skeletal of underround
silhouetting dark
boughs against wall of
forest till round of umbrella
leaftop — Between here
& there I see the rigid
woodpole sticks out of
haystack, conical Stack,
with a cross stick, surrounded
by hedge of weeds, of
brown & gray gold hairy
texture in clear French
Impressionistic Sun —
After farm solid
wall of forest broken
sharply at road, where
wall resumes on other side
— There is the gray
vision of the old tenant
shack with pale brick
chimbley silhouetted
against a hill-height of
September corn turned
frowsy & hay color —
with mysterious Carolina
continuing distant trees
beyond — & the faintest
wedge of littlecloud right
on horizon above — Across
road forestwall is darker,
deeper, pine trunks stand
luminous in the dark shade
bespotted & specked with
background browngreen
masses — horizontal puff-
green pinebranches, all
over the frizzly corn
top sea — Then Rod’s
logcabin, with pig pen
(old gray clapboards)