The book of poetry “A Passage into Madness” has been ten years of collections; my daughter passed suddenly 2010; my mourning has been hidden within the pages of my poetry and my life, my pain constant. most times I find myself in a place of inner darkness, the threat of madness crouched above me; and it does not go away. I was in a fervor to put the words down; what begin as writing, an accounting of me, turned quickly into “Poetry”. I felt like my spirit wanted the accounting, the apocalyptic writing begin; and it closed with shocking revelations into my personal life.
As a writer I love to take writing prompts and create short-short stories, the words for this creation…Sheepherders, Grass, Gypsy, Father, Heaven. Sometimes they come easy other times difficult.
A Sheepherder’s Life
On a dark hillside, the sheepherders and dogs are tired, their long day is over and they are ready for the warmth of the fire. No bleating, cries of from wandering wolves, all is at rest; there is a shimmering moon and bright stars, their roof is Heaven and their beds the earth. The sheepherder’s whisper of the day and what will come tomorrow, they speak of past happiness and sorrow.
They talk of keeping the wolves away on this warm summer night when hours of darkness will cover the land. They watch the sparks from their fire ascend into the purple night. Tomorrow they will have to move to a new meadow or hillside, the grass where they lay is only roots. They smoke their pipes and talk of gypsy-lore, the sheep, the dogs and herding, a gift from God. This was their father’s life, now it’s their life.
Flying with Broken Wings is about the life of Charlotte Jean Murphree. Charlotte was not a famous person, in fact, not too many people knew her, but those that did knew there were many facets to her life. the book tells of fifty-two-years of daily testing of her will to carry on and the misfortune she faced. As a baby and young girl she was made fun of by schoolchildren, her progress was slow but she never gave up the fight to overcome her disabilities. As an adult, she fought Cerebral Palsy, Living with Bipolar, Depression and Schizophrenia disorders. Charlotte lived not only with herself but she endured the “Voices” that lived within her for over thirty years. This book is about her beginning, her middle and the end of her life.
Well hello my wonderful followers…it appears that I will add September 2019 to my list of “GIVE ME A BREAK”. On September 18th I landed in the hospital again…this time with elevated sugar levels. This did of course put me in a race to bring them under control. Today is the 24th and I can cross my fingers, eyes and anything else I can cross that we have come up with the right dose. I am now at 61 units of Insulin. I do hope I can see the end of the tunnel with this setback? I am anxious to get back into the throws of writing today. In the words of one of my favorite writers, Anne LaMotte, I am working on the first “SHITTY” draft of Generations of Secrets and Lies. In organizing my many chapters, events and heartaches I have determined that if it is not shortened, it will need to be a series. This is fine too; it is a saga that covers eight generations at this time. So I wish all of you good blogging, and never give up on your passion, no matter what may get in your way, I believe it is all worth the time and effort. I will try to give you another update soon.
Elizabeth
All books located on Amazon.com under Elizabeth Ann Johnson-Murphree
In the cold damp room, soft moans came from the young woman lying on the bed; she was a live skeleton covered with pale flesh; beneath her, a cornhusk mattress covered with a collection of old newspapers and worn out sheets made from bleached flour sacks waiting for the reality of the coming birth. Her strength gone, she looked out the window at the moon, it appeared to be hanging on an invisible thread in the darkness, she prayed to who she thought may be holding the moon in place; another invisible person…GOD. In the waning March moonlight, she did not hear the baby crying, tears fell from the corner of her eyes the pain unbearable, the birth was over; she looked at the motionless baby at the foot of the iron bed; maybe it would die soon. She heard no crying.
“Missus Ruth you have a
baby girl,” Allimay Schumaker their neighbor and a mid-wife whispered softly as
she tried to place the baby in her mother’s arms.
“Get it away from me”,
the sound came between clenched teeth, like a caged angry wild animal but it
was only a whisper.
Mrs. Schumaker tried again
to place the baby in her mothers’ arms, “She so tiny Missus Ruth, I doubt she
will live don’t you want to hold her”.
“I told you to get it
away from me”.
After cleaning up the bed and throwing everything including the remains of the baby’s lifeline to its mother into a burning barrel, Allimay walked across the open breezeway of the two-pen split log house that separated the sleeping room from the cooking room, and at one time served as Burleson slave quarters. She paused for a moment pulling back the cover from the baby’s face, two dark blue almost black eyes stared back at her; long dark hair curled around the baby’s shoulders. She gave a sigh and walked through the door.
Roy ___name?____ sat on a
homemade chair in front of their fieldstone fireplace in the cooking room. He worried about his wife, and his baby; his
biggest fear, losing one or both of them.
He had sat there for hours, he heard no moaning or cries of pain, the
silence between the two rooms was still like a frozen fog. He did not hear anything; perhaps both his
baby and his wife were dead. Quietly
Allimay came into the room, so softly that not one board creaked from the
weight of her colossal body, she smiled, holding out the tiny bundle.
“Mr. Roy, you have a
little Indian baby, black hair just like you” she gently laid the baby in his
rough work worn hands. He laughed
pulling back the covers from the tiny bundle so small it fit in his hand.
“Mr. Roy you need to get
ready to lose this little one, she is so small, Missus Ruth doesn’t want her
and she doesn’t have any milk”. She
dabbed at her eyes.
“Well Mr. Roy she is all cleaned up and you need to call out Missus Ruth’s Uncle; that doctor from Hartselle.” She repeated herself dabbing at her eyes. “She shore don’t want this baby. I have to go now, if you need me ring the big bell on the porch somebody will hear it. I have to go take care of my own family now, but I will keep Miss Billie for a few days”.
Allimay Schumaker had nine children of her own, one more would not matter; she glanced in one more time at the lifeless woman, closed the door gently and walked slowly up the narrow rutted road.
“Thank you very much Missus Schumaker, I’ll be lying in a cord of wood for you helping Ruth”, Roy then sat for a moment staring at the tiny life he held in his hands no more than twelve inches long and maybe two pounds.
Roy shook his head bringing himself back to reality; Ruth had gotten rid of the baby bed years ago, announcing that she did not want any more children. He lay the baby down on the fireplace hearth, going into the other room to search for a box. He found a box, returning to the baby never looking at his wife. He knew that Ruth chose starvation trying to lose the baby. She knew that if she starved so would the baby. There was a possibility that her method would not work, he was not one to pray; but he did when he saw what she was doing. Now, he stood looking down at the result of her starvation.
Ruth lay still on the
bed, pretending to be asleep so she would not have to look at Roy all the while
wishing the crying that sounded more like a kitten mewing instead of a human
baby coming from the other room would stop.
She turned on her side watching the watery blue liquid dropping on the
sheet from her breast; she knew that she had no milk.
Roy weighed the baby with a two-pound cotton pee and the baby could not pull it down to measure, it was less than two pounds. Cotton pees, was meant to weigh cotton, a bell like object with a hook made of solid steel. A measuring bar would have a sack of cotton on one end and a pee of various weights put on the other to measure the cottons weight; this time the scale did not budge his baby was too small to pull the weight down.
William Schumaker owned his land, Roy worked for Mr. Burleson for a wage, $20.dollars a month, they all tried to survive in the miserable days of the depression. Mr. Burleson, was one of the wealthiest men in Morgan County, Alabama; the land that the old log house stood on was Burleson land and at one time housed slaves that worked the land. They used the same well, the same chicken house and stanchion for the cow; the only difference in the house was floors that had been put in several years ago. Roy believed that Mr. Burleson respected him, he was a hard worker, and the land he worked yielded more than most who sharecropped. Time had not taken away the horror brought upon those long ago tenants; from the top to the lowest of people in the south, in 1939 people continued to believe Indians and Negro’s were lower than the animals on the land. Roy was known as the “Half-Breed”. His mother was one-half Native American, his daddy a white man whom he had not seen since he was twelve-years-old.
Roy stoked at the fire his thoughts wandered toward the time when he first met Ruth. She was at a local Roadhouse in Flint, Alabama with her sister Emma Sue. Emma was out on the dance floor having a good time; Ruth sat at a table in the back of the room hoping no one would see her. She and Emma Sue had slipped out after their parents were asleep; Emma Sue had a boyfriend; they met them at the road below Burleson Mountain. If they were caught, it would be Ruth that got beat. She would be told that she should know better, not Emma Sue. She did not look like she wanted any company. Roy had known of the place for years, it was one of his stops when he was running whisky from South Birmingham, Alabama to Chicago, Illinois. No one could have told him then that he would have a wife and two daughters a few years later on that early March morning.
He had come to Morgan County because of Ma, his grandmother. His last run was a bad one, his car had been riddled with bullets by Tennessee law enforcement, and he had barely got away from them. He was known by the local law enforcement but the people who hired him to run whiskey, except them ole boys in Tennessee, paid them off, they did not take bribes! He drove through Tennessee; his speed would surpass the power of any car and put the needle on his dash out of sight. He would laugh every time he told that story. Ma was right he needed to lay low for a while; it had been his dream to return to Birmingham to play baseball for the Birmingham Black Bears, a minor team. No one knew that it was Roy driving the car, few knew his name. That was all gone now, playing baseball lay dead in his past he had responsibilities now!
Billie, their first
child, was the only child that Ruth wanted. She had nine brothers and sisters, she help
deliver most of them and raised them until the day her daddy kicked her out. She lay crying thinking that maybe her
strength would return so she could take care of herself and Billie, for days she
still held onto the idea that this baby would die. Ruth had hope to stop at giving birth to one
child, she was tired of being poor; she wanted to make a better life by going
to work.
Ruth had always hated
Vina and the fact that her husband’s half sister lived well; a beautician that
owned her own shop in Birmingham, Alabama.
Vina’s husband Wesley worked for the steel mill and brought home good
money, Ruth was envious.
Actually, Vina had always
thought she had not planned Billie either.
Vina believed that Ruth found herself pregnant after a few roadhouse
visits with her sister, meeting Roy. When
she told Roy, he married her; he was just that kind of man. Billie had been born eight months and two
weeks after they married. Roy had not
planned a child either. His dream did
not lie in the cotton fields of Northern Alabama. Nevertheless, he was a decent man, and he
thought this was the thing to do.
Ruth appeared disappointed that the baby had survived such a difficult birth. She was very ill herself, both physically and
mentally; unhappy that she had another child, one she did not want. She rolled over falling into a fretful sleep;
maybe when she woke she would have a funeral to attend.
Old Doc White, Ruth’s Uncle came after
the baby was born; her mother’s brother lived and had his practice in
Hartselle, Alabama, he said the baby was too small but seem healthy and Ruth
was despondent as many mothers are after delivering a baby. He said only time could help his niece or the
baby. He left saying he would register
the baby’s birth when he returned to Hartselle.
Ruth chose not to have anything to do with the baby; she left it up to Roy to care for her. Their oldest daughter, Billie came back home and she did help all she could, but the ability to care for a sick baby and mother was not possible for the six-year-old, it is said that Billie had a hard life. Roy could see that it was impossible to leave Ruth, Billie and a baby to work the fields. He walked a few days later to the Schumaker’s and called his sister Vina.
She came that night to
stay with him for a few days. Vina had
given birth to a baby, girl born only weeks before and the baby was stillborn. She and her husband Wesley had two boys,
Everett and Jimmy. She was in mourning,
but she loved her brother and he needed help.
Vina knew that Ruth did not care for her but she always tried to
overlook Ruth’s actions.
When she arrived, she found Ruth despondent and Roy worried, both were
at odds with each other. Ruth had
refused to try nursing or care for her baby.
Now she was upset that Vina was there, within days, Roy agreed that the
baby could return to Birmingham with Vina.
Vina, left with the baby in a shoebox stuffed with cotton from the
nearby field and covered with flour sacks for a blanket. Before she left her daddy named her __?_______
and Vina called her __?_, it was never known but most believed that she would
have called her stillborn baby _?__. So
____?______ born on ___?___, 1939, a beautiful month in Northern Alabama. The buttercups, lilac and forsythia bushes
would have been blooming around the Two-Pen cabin Roy, and Ruth called
home. Kudzu vines would have covered
the makeshift chicken house and the “Outhouse”.
Beyond, a small barn surrounded by razor sharp Johnson grass bordered
acres of freshly plowed ground waiting to nurture the seeds of what the south
called white gold … cotton. The family
would move from this shack in the middle of a cotton field and _?__ as Vina
called her would not see it until twelve years after her birth.
Vina cared for the baby
girl for two years, she gave her everything a baby would need including a Nanny
to take care of her while Vina returned to work. Roy tried to get to Birmingham once a month
to see his baby, Ruth stayed behind with the only child she would ever want.
Continue with draft #2 – No Choice
This book of poetry “Passage into Madness”has been ten years in the making; my daughter passed suddenly in 2010; my mourning has been hidden within these pages… of life my pain constant. I found myself in a place of inner darkness, the threat of madness crouched above me; and it does not go away. I was in a fervor to put the words down; what begin as writing an accounting of me, turned quickly into “Poetry”. I felt like my spirit wanted the accounting, an apocalyptic writing begin; an it closed with shocking revelations into my personal life
