I saw my grandmother transform, like a stone monument I saw my grandmother, always composed and hardened in her emotions, her role toward me as consoler. Loving, yes, and joyful, but never sorrowful or crying. She never smiles in photographs, at least not fully. I remember her curled knuckles around my shoulders after a scratched knee, or the homesickness of staying overnight, we stayed up … Continue reading Historic Preservation VI
Great Aunt Helen’s house had stairs of legendary steepness. I remember crawling with my hands clutching the wooden boards of each higher step. She used to sleep up there until her back became hunched and the flight dangerous. She also had a pump organ and played a song for us every visit. So surprising her performance, this frail, bird nest of a woman with hollow … Continue reading Historic Preservation V by John Moessner
Blight runs a block dry, cut off like a limb without blood, clots stuck like leaves in chain-link. I pass DJ’s Snack Shack on my way to work at the downtown library. Closed for the day, year, generation, a sign hung perpendicular to the fading facade, a muted beige, what once was white paint baked to the color of creamed corn advertised in the window. … Continue reading Historic Preservation IV by John Moessner
My father’s yard is his gospel to the world. All green, cut and tamed, like a circus lion he’d put his head into every hot day in July. When he’d feel nostalgic, which was more often than he’d let on, he’d mention his father, how he was sustainable before the word ever took to seed. He had a compost and vegetable garden that dared you … Continue reading Historic Preservation III by John Moessner
Rain colors the joints of an oak coffee table set on the strip of grass between road and sidewalk. Ethan Allen, hero of a revolution, sits burned into its belly. The nicks and small dents of dropped mugs, or the rings from sweaty glasses, all highlighted by the humid shower and the drying, noon sun. One might hesitate to get rid of an heirloom, especially … Continue reading Historic Preservation II by John Moessner
The walls of a 19th century church are cracking and falling away, and you try to save them, because you can’t save your father. The stained glass is brittle, the shallow panes in their thin iron veins darkened by damp and squatters’ fires, and the lime mortar used as a stop gap, to fill the holes of swallows and spider silk, looks jammed and fudged. … Continue reading Historic Preservation I by John Moessner
