C. William Applegate

Seemingly from where sky meets land,
room fills with fresh scent of dandelion greens.
It is only a whisper, heard nonetheless.
“Billy, have you seen your brother Harold?”
Claude to Roger across the table,
“No Lulah, I haven’t seen Harold since yesterday.”
A second stretches to thirty.
Dandelion smells losing to mingling cigarette smoke.
Thirty seconds stretches to sixty.
Fresh catfish in the bucket, backyard.
Dottie sitting on a rock, waits.
Three yards and a cloud of dust.
Unyielding, Roger answers,
“The Union won’t settle for a nickel less an hour.”
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again,
“The Union won’t settle for a nickel less an hour.”

It all depends on where you sit.

6 a.m. Mass in Hinche, Haiti

Angels in the Dark

I’m sleeping on a simple cot in the Rectory.
Hinche, Haiti. 
Suddenly the night sounds of constantly barking dogs are overwhelmed by a hand rung bell in the steeple  of the Sacre Coeur church only a stone's throw away.
It is 5 a.m. 
More dogs bark. 
Roosters dotting the landscape begin their daily ritual. 
Hinche awakens in its darkness. 
And as not to have one forget,
allowing me to fall back into sleep,
the bell sounds again its call to morning.
It is 5:30 a.m.
To follow in what seems a timeless sense of space,
gentle voices of children can be heard,
singing hymns.
I listen mesmerized in a dreamlike state.
Voices from heaven I wonder?
It is 6 a.m.
Daily Mass begins in Sacre Coeur.
Darkness is giving way to lightness.
As I pray,
uniformed children of Carissade begin their walks to school.

- Steve Applegate



- Video by Ed Gerardo

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