Moon Walker

    The shrimp boat slid into Charleston harbor. Its distinctive white hull outlined against the orange red of a setting Carolina sun. The only sound came from the squawking feathered multitude of gulls that swirled and dived for their dinner. It was a sight he loved no matter how many times it was repeated.
     From the Battery he walked past the old ghost of mansions that fronted the harbor and East Bay. Greek revival palaces built for the shippers and growers of Rice,Indigo and Sea Island Cotton. Through their gates of wrought iron adorned with pineapples and rope he could see a joggling board waiting and hoping for just one more young couple to come courting.
      Walking  over the cobblestones that had come from all over the world as ballast in the hold of merchant ships from centuries past. The well worn stones of every color had finally found a home. Much like all the people who now call this port city their own they are now and forever a part of the fabric of the old town.
       Darkness came and with it the city began to whisper, calling to one and all to embrace its seductive sirens call. The musk of her age mixed with the sweet scent of magnolias and gardenias from her hidden gardens and the aroma of 5 star restaurants that wafted in the breeze as he made his way down old Market street.
      A horse and carriage moved down Meeting street with the ease of a scene that had been repeated for 300 years. The guide gossiped of revolution ,hurricanes, and pirates,but  he knew that if they rode all night. He still couldn't tell Charles Townes story. The first chapter would have to do tonight. Pointing out earthquake rods on  buildings, he tipped his hat as he passed, before making his way toward White Point Gardens. They faded away into the night until all that was left behind was the sound of hoofs taping out a secret love song from the past.
      Passing under oak trees that had greeted the first settlers, he came to his church just as a wedding was ending. The strains of organ music lilted away to be replaced by the sound of joy and love and forever that filled the night. He slipped through the crowd almost unnoticed as rice filled the air and turned to walk through a small side gate and then behind the large white stone walls.
      The night was almost over now. Salty sea air blew in from the harbor and it passed right through him as it cooled the fresh cut grass where he laid. Silence had returned to his world. From above a crescent moon looked back down on him for the last time this month and he was already missing it. It would be back and then so would he. As he closed his eyes and began to fade away into the first rays of morning light he was already planning his next walk around the old town.


                            R. Sweat
   
     
 

Poetry/ Last Look Back

     He thought for a moment. How long have I been here? As the last rays of the failing Carolina sun warmed the back of his neck and cast long shadows that streaked across the sand dunes in a race toward the darkening waters of the Atlantic,it seemed that all time had stopped
     He looked on as two children played in a tidal pool. Their bleached white hair once short in the spring now caressed shoulders tanned nut brown by the long days of a seemingly endless beach vacation. From afar a mothers voice says its time to go. But its only her promise of a return one day that finally tears them away from their kingdom of sandcastles and seashells.They were now children of the beach for evermore and they left  behind not only their fortress in the sand, but also a small piece of themselves and their childhood for mother nature to reclaim on the next high tide. Blending their souls with all those who have come before into the  tide line of life that stretched from here to eternity.
     He missed the beach umbrellas that had once lined the shore like so many colorful Christmas ornaments stretching as far as the eye could see. Havens for families that had used them to escape the relentless rays of sun, life itself seemed to began and end in their embrace Now cleaned and packed away they left no trace of the world as it had been. Only a landscape of ghosts and memories drifted in the September air,as the last hallow sounds of laughter faded on the cooling breeze, leaving only the  rhythmic tide to fill the void.
      He felt the presence of his father and grandfather move beside him and as they all stood looking out toward the horizon,the days last light had left the world of Summer behind in blends of orange and scarlet and colors not yet named by man. Soon a crescent moon would ascend to crown the Lowcountry sky. A God sent tierra brought down by angels and left as a gift for all  of us blessed to call this land our own. It was then he knew. How long had he been there,,,,,forever.
   
    From the North  the wind began to whisper. making the salty sand stir, gently at first it spoke the words that no one wants to hear,,,,,Summer is over.

                R. Sweat

Poetry/ FOG

    The boat moved deeper into the fog. All alone I put paddle to water, trying to make my way into this strange and foreign world . Slowly I lose my bearings of all things human as foreboding shapes move toward me only to brush away and disappear once again into the pale. Ever changing, they offer only a promise to be, something., anything before they slip away again into a lie of illusion. Taking with them all hints of hope and home and safety. It occurs to me that its time past that floats by on the water below me and I sense the growing distance between life and myself.
    The world has drifted into silence and even my heart now makes no noise . I think of  my friends and family and wish I could go back, but thats not meant to be, this day. Move on, move on, I must move on. Through the mist and into the endless nothingness; ahead through my dreams, ahead through my nightmares, ahead into what was always meant to be.
     Colder, I feel the fabric of the fog sink into my skin, blend and become a part of me and  my movements slow as it takes control. The frosty white blanket invades my body and brings with it the first welcoming  thoughts of  the long sleep to come. I try to shiver, to shake off the chill, but I am no match, and for the first time I am forced to accept the idea of a world without tomorrow.
     Drifting now the boat is on its own, no longer am I its master. Deeper and deeper into this clouded nether world I am bound by fate to travel. I feel all illusion's of control leave my clouded mind as the paddle slides slowly from the   now still hand of the living world and  down into unknown depths of the next below. I don't mind,  I know that the boat has taken me as far as it can, fore I must take as we all  must,,,, that final journey alone,,,,

                                      The fog and I are one.

                                                                                                R. Sweat
   
   

Poetry / A Coastal Love Song

   Sitting on the edge of the world I find myself under a night sky dominated by a crescent moon that sits like a promise on the edge of the horizon, A tease she calls to me with the lure of adventure, and the promise of forbidden romance.
   Eyes closed, my body knows as the tide begins to shift from ebb high as it begins it's everlasting journey, from my back yard to the Atlantic and to all points on the compass.I feel a sense of loss as it slips away and I miss her already.
    Surf sounds to a rhythm as it meets and mates with the land in a dance as old as time itself, sharing its sirens song of love with anyone who will listen, beckoning, seducing for me to follow.
     Moist taste of the night air fills me, becomes part of me with every measured breath. Every gulp of air I take blends all that I am with all that I want to be. The salty world around me heavy on my palate. If the world had only one flavor, this would be it.
     Every wave sending the scent of promises kept and broken deep into the  Carolina night. Heavy with the musk of desire it moves my thoughts to wonder how many others have sat here on the edge of heaven and wondered if it could get any better.

            Nothing could be finer, than to,,,,,Well Y'all know the song....

                                                                                R. Sweat

Bridges In Time- A Lowcountry Timeout

Ben Sawyer Bridge

      Sitting on Sulivans Island the other day waiting for the Bridge to close, I couldn't help but think of how rare it is in this hyper-speed world that we are forced to re-evaluate our life and direction by A technology that has been around longer than the City we live in. Ahead of me through their car windows I saw a line of impatient drivers and passengers alike all hooked up to their smart phones, completely oblivious to to the very scenery they traveled so far to see. It occurred to me that as the quality of the bridges have improved its had the effect not of bringing us closer together but just the opposite. Its given us a quicker, faster way for us to reach an end, not a beginning. There seemed to be a direct correlation between the improvement to our bridges and the distance from our peace of mind. 
     Being a coastal people, Charlestonians would find it impossible to drive fifteen minutes in any direction and not cross some body of water. Surrounded as we are by the many marshes, rivers, creeks and of course the ocean, we often don't stop to think about how special this land is.  Like Venice we are a city of Islands connected to one another by a spider weblike network of bridges that most of us never notice or most certainly take for granted.
    The Cooper River(Ravenel), Limehouse,Wappoo cut, War Memorial, Ben Sawyer, Stono, Grace memorial, Wando & Westbury bridges tie our community and each other together like a hand sewn quilt. Smaller bridges; Noisette, Ellis,Breach Inlet and Penny's creek along with numerous others complete the fine detail stitching that completes the bond holding all of us together not just as a city but as a community.

Stono River Bridge

     Weather in the Lowcountry is a fickle thing at best. Seasons seem to come and go on a whim and not at the command of any calender. I have as a kid learned to judge where we are on our yearly seasonal journey by the color and growth of the marsh grasses. Many times I would sit in my car waiting for the Stono Bridge and look out over the marshes and it always struck me as a much better and certainly more personal way to judge the onset of spring or fall. From the old bridge you could smell the salt water and hear the wind in the rigging of the sailboats at Buzzards Roost Marina. Now the Stono has been reduced to nothing more than a bump in the road on Maybank highway.

Old Cooper River Bridge

     Anyone who ever drove across the Old Cooper River Bridge knows the sight of scared tourist white knuckling their way from Mount Pleasant to Downtown, and we would all be liars if we didn't admit to the anxiety that even the most stout of heart must have felt on a quick descent into the first corner. The old bridge dangerous as it was did though bring everyone and everything in our cars to a church like silence for a short time and I can attest to more than one "Thank God" or "I love you" was uttered at the critical moment. I bet that today our kids I Pods would go silent, and all cell phones would go unanswered if we still had to cross the old Bridge. Now the scariest thing about the new bridge is trying not to wreck or get caught by your wife as you check out the girls who run the bridge to and from town on the running/biking lane.
    Sitting one day at the Wappoo Cut bridge I remembered my my dad telling me about taking the cable cars from downtown Charleston out to Folly Beach and Sullivans Island when he was a kid. Sitting in a cable car they would have lunch as they crossed the marshes on railway bridges just feet above the water on their way to the beach. His family would take up the entire car and they used the time to talk about their week or tell tales about the islands and look for the migration of the fish and fowl that permeate our local land and waters as they make there way across our coast.

Wappoo Cut Bridge

     My personal tie to the Wappoo Cut is one summer when I went with a group of friends and we spent the day jumping the 40 plus feet from the bridge into the cut only to swim out and do it again, until the Charleston City Police ran us off. Wet, laughing and full of adrenaline were young, foolish and bullet proof for that brief moment in time. Its one thing to see the cut from the bridge, but its quite different to feel the tug of the tide and the pull of a bond of friendship from water level. No technology needed, just a little gravity, alot of peer pressure and the courage of youth. It was simple, direct,exciting and oh so connected to this land.

Isle of Palms Connector

      I wonder how many romances were started at the draw bridges that use to dot our coast? How many souls owe our existence today to the extra time that our parents were oh so happily forced to be together, waiting for a drawbridge? Moonlight shinning on the water and  the sound of a ships horn sounding somewhere in the distance as she headed seaward. I don't think cupid hunts on the IOP connector and if he did it's hard to hit a moving target. People who blast to and from the beach don't often think about where they are, only where their going.

     Bridges by definition tie people together,but their just a tool like any other. Used  to connect both land and people together, they also can bond you to the ones who count. It's so easy to forget that the only reality that we can live in is the now. So next time you cross a bridge, roll the windows down and mute the phone, and share a few minutes and maybe story about the time of the dinosaurs, a time before cell towers ruled the earth and the inner net was a place where you caught shrimp.
   
 
   

Bicycle Poetry/ Life Is Just a Cycle

Tired I wheeled back into the saddle, feeling outspoken almost cranky, peddling the same tubular thoughts through my head.Set on breaking the chains that fork my reality to the hub of my existence. 

A quick release of all stress as I drop out to regain my bearings, virtually on the rim of smiling, spinning on an axle of joy, no longer a need to handle bars or nuts in my life. 

Now seated at my post at the center of what should be the frame work for a happy life,,,,,,
Life Is A Cycle After All.

                                                              R. Sweat

Voodoo, Root Women, Curses Sometimes Come True

     The sea islands  around Charleston have their own ebb and flow. From the many tidal creeks and marshes to the rhythm of life lived by the descendants of slaves who for generations were the sole inhabitants of  this secluded place. In this hallowed land of Angel Oaks and salt marshes the lines between truth, religion, belief, fantasy, fact and lore are often blurred and hidden from the sight of  any outsiders that happen to stray into their world.
      Local voodoo called "Root" was brought here in the bellies of the first slave ships to reach Charleston. Africans inserted into this strange land were stripped of all possessions and forced into Christianity by their owners. As a way of remembering and handing down their homelands heritage, they began to incorporate many of  the elements from their native beliefs and practices into their new religion. Poultices, blessings, signs, and curses from many African tribes found there way to the South Carolina Lowcountry and over the years became inseparable from any single belief system.
     Being from the city I had never heard of "Root" growing up nor had I ever heard the Gullah language that is spoken so beautifully on the islands around my famous home town. The first time I heard of our local brand of witchcraft I was only 17 years old and working my first real job on Seabrook Island. One of my fellow workers was a young girl who was in love with a local boy, but before he would marry her, she had to have a "test baby" to prove that she was fertile. Anna was a quiet young lady of 19 with startling grey eyes and an easy, graceful manner. She possessed a smile that would make any Hollywood starlet green with envy. A petite girl, she had been seeing her young man for 2 years and she glowed with the light reserved only for those deeply in love.
     Boy babies are prized in the Gullah community and a man who has male offspring is instantly given status so often the women of the islands would go to great lengths to try to insure that they would have a boy child. To this extent Anna wore a poultice bag of herbs and magical tokens around her neck that were guaranteed to ensure a sons birth.Whether I believed in the power of the smelly concoction in the qui qui bag didn't matter; she did. Evidently the odor, while stifling, kept everyone else at bay, it didn't seem to have the same effect on her fiancee. Nine months later Anna  and her man had a baby boy, and a month after that she was wed.
     A few years later I was taking an employee home to his house on Johns Island after a long hot workday. When we pulled into the driveway of the small 150 year old home, Clint as any good southerner will do invited me in to meet his family. As I entered the neat as a pin residence I noticed thousands of coins, from pennies to quarters covering the floor. Unlike the rest of the house, the floor was un-kept and dust covered. Next to the polished furniture and clean glass windows of the rest of the house, the crust covered floor definitely stood out. Clint's wife and kids were a mirror to his upbeat, intelligent personality and I enjoyed my visit with them, but I was expected home so I bid them goodnight and made my way to the door,feet crunching on the treasure trove of coins under my feet.
    As I reached the door the thought of the myriad  of coins crossed my mind, so out of curiosity I bent to pick up a quarter. From behind me I heard a chorus of "STOP" and little shrieks of terror that chilled my heart and froze me in my tracks. Looking back I saw the fear and despair  in their eyes, so hands up palms toward them I turned around to ask what was up. The tale I was told was my second and strangest run In with "Root" ,,,,,Yet.
     The story went that Clint's wife had and argument with the daughter of a local "Root Woman" or witch. After a six month running battle over the disagreement, they were awaken by a knock at the door at the witching hour,twelve midnight only to find the "Root Woman" standing on their porch. Without a sound the woman spit into her palms and threw two large handfuls of mixed coins past my host's and onto the floor, laughing she ran away, but never uttering a word. Seems the woman had cursed each coin with a different malady and any or all of them would come true if they were ever picked up off the floor. That was eight years ago and over time as the family would drop additional coins on the floor where they would be left in fear of picking up the wrong one and setting off whatever evil spell was contained by mistake.  The curse while terrifying to our subconscious actualy had a practical application. #1 The dirt and dust accumulated on the floors had to have negatively impacted the health of all of those who lived there. #2 Money lost to the floor was lost forever and even though it was just coins it still had  a negative financial  impact on a family living just above the poverty line. 3 The mental stress of believing in the curse and living around the tokens of that curse must have been a strain. Seeing on a daily basis the objects that were designed to bring you doom, must have been akin to walking around with a loaded gun at your head. Clint moved his family 2 years later and never went back to the house that had been passed down  to him for three generations. As far as I know they never touched a coin.
       One summer I had a crew of 15 guys working for me that all grew up and went to school together on the islands. It was one of the best groups I ever had work for me. They seemed to anticipate each other, and soon we all fell into a work rhythm  that summer. Twelve hours a day we laughed,sweat, ate and bled together to the seasons music. Simple, hard, hot, and unforgettable.
      Kiawah in those days had a cafeteria that served mainly leftovers from the restaurants or Mingo Point (The almost every night barbecue and square dance just outside the security gate). Ribs,Chicken,Potato Salad, Red Rice, Hush Puppies,,,,and more. Good eats at a good price or so I thought.
      One day while feasting on barbecued chicken I noticed that none of the guys were eating the red rice. Curious I asked if no one liked it and in unison they all shot me looks ranging from amusement to bordering on fright. Dumbfounded I pressed for more information and after twenty minutes or so, I was given an  explanation that left me wordless and more than a little ill. I don't know if what they told me was true, but if they believed it, that meant that the women casting the spells believed it, so it could be true. Anyway be forewarned.
      My guys, one at a time and sometimes in unison told me a tale of deceit, treachery and what can only be described as desperation. They said that local girls who wanted to enact what amounted to a love potion, and conquer a mans heart used a potion that included their, how can I say it nicely,,,,,,Monthly Discharge....I know,,,EEEEwwwww! They would use some medium, soup, sauces, spaghetti, bloody mary's, anything tomato based, to slip this most personal potion to the man or men they were interested in controlling. Hence the red rice.
     This was my third and certainly most personal contact with "Root". What I do know is that I had eaten the red rice for months and that I was engaged to marry a woman I couldn't stand. It wasn't until I had to move to Florida to go to college five years later that I came to my senses and got a divorce,,,,coincidence? Was it the distance from "Root" or that overwhelming urge to strangle her on a daily basis  that finally broke the spell? I don't know. What I do know is that I have never looked at a tomato the same way and I always cook the red rice.
     "Root" was around long before we arrived on the planet and I have no doubt it will be part of my great great grand kids vocabulary one hundred years from now. Part science, part witchcraft, it's carved out it's own niche in fabric of our fare city. People who believe, swear by it, while others scoff at the mere idea of anything unseen in this world. I don't know where I stand or what I believe, exactly. I do know that it's always wise to be wary and to keep an open mind about things you know little of, but mostly one should always be respectful of other peoples beliefs. Mark Twain once said, "Nothings more powerful than what you don't know".  I'm reminded of that every time I see someone wearing a lucky medallion around their neck, or stoop to pick up a heads up coin and especially every time I see a plate of red rice.