An Old Familiar Place

JOAB From Chapter 4   Listening long for voices that never will speak again, hearing the hoofbeats come and go and fade without a stop … Donald Davidson Said of General Lee after the War   The muffled drum’s sad roll has beat The soldier’s last tattoo; No more on life’s parade shall meet That brave and fallen few. From Bivouac of the Dead Theodore O’Hara Joab spent the night on the bank of the Tennessee River, rose with the first light of day, rolled his blanket, and rode up the hill in knee deep grass to Shiloh. The rain had stopped and the early sun cast cheerful rays through hundreds of live oak trees whose fresh green leaves glistened with every drop that clung for moments and then dropped to the acorn-covered ground. He was seeing the beautiful state of Tennessee for the first time. If not for the sickening thought of blood and treasure strewn across the hills of Shiloh, it wo...

I sat on the wicker swing, thinking about the ties that bind. About my mother, and peeling peaches with her on the back porch, dreaming about the day when I would leave this place and begin a life of my own, with not the least thought that this wonderful man would walk right into my life, leaving me drained of myself, filling me with his own dreams beyond my wildest imagination. Only God in heaven knows the extent of those dreams and visions that played to the hilt on the stage of my life, enhanced through the years by His amazing love and grace and brought to closing moments with continued joy unspeakable and full of glory. I was exhausted. Filled to the brim with memories. Of things I will never forget, duly reminded by this old plantation. I had to leave. I turned around to watch the wicker swing moving back and forth like a scene from an old movie in slow motion, looking up to the attic windows of the old plantation house. I slowly took the steps down, touched the hawthorn t...