It's Still Life

It’s May. The streets are wet from this morning’s sharp shower, apple blossoms are falling from the trees, and the birds are singing and whittling twigs into nests. The air seems a song. My dad, bless him these 10-years gone, used to whistle that zip-a-dee-doo-dah song. He’d smile as if Mr Bluebird was on his shoulder. But Dad was Northern to the bone – had an odd fear of going south of the Mason-Dixon Line. As if the enemy of his own good intentions waited on the other side of that divide. But I’ve done — crossed over it last month, and as we drove to Point Lookout and wandered the Chesapeake views, I swear that I heard my dad whistle that zip-a-dee-doo-dah song as the wind coaxed the old lighthouse to sing its own mournful tune.

This sea’s without soul,
Light swimming underwater,
These waves, too fractious

Written for dVerse’s Haibun #36 and The Twiglets #22. This is based on a recent trip to Virginia, Pennsylvania and southern Maryland. Image from US Coastguard Image Archive. The song “Zip-a-dee-doo-dah” is from Disney’s movie “Song of the South” 1946