". . . Did you not know moonbeams are slick as soap, Davie?"
Davie gaped at me as if I already was askate on moonbeams, but he did the windows fine. Next I had him wash the blackboard, then fill our bucket with fresh drinking water from the creek. I swept and hummed, dusted and hummed. . .
"Do you know this old tune, Davie?" I asked, for it seemed to me an impossibly dim prospect that anyone should go through this wonderful thing, life, knowing only songs of Texans and horses. "You don't? That's odd, for it seems to be addressed to you."
"Me?"
"Surely. Listen to it."Dancing at the rascal fair,
try it, Davie, if you dare,
hoof and shoe, stag and mare,
dancing at the rascal fair.
Davie whipped through the last of his tasks as if afraid my lunacy might be catching. "Is there anything more, Mr. McCaskill?"
. . . There was a thing more I wanted done, but I needed to be the doer. I went to the freshly washed blackboard and in my best hand, which was an urchin's scrawl compared to Anna Ramsay's, wrote large the next verse to come:
Dancing at the rascal fair,
moon and star, fire and air,
choose your mate and make a pair,
dancing at the rascal fair.- excerpt from DANCING AT THE RASCAL FAIR, by Ivan Doig
(3:37 length)
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5 comments:
Hey Lydia
What a wonderful collection of related posts and pictures. I enjoyed the exerpt from Ivan Doig especially.
I was just thinking as i woke up this morning to darkness that the summer is definately over here - which means my cycling days are numbered for another year :(
Good side is the dark nights do keep the local idiots indoors a bit more :)
I forgot to ask you, May I come next year?
i'm not ready yet!
( the refrain of my life )
@Pixies- Thanks much!
Today I saw a woman on a bike while we were walking our dogs. It was robin's egg blue with fat tires. I wanted it!
@Darlene- In all seriousness, absolutely! If you would plan that we will pick you up at the PDX airport and squire you to the fair (and any sites you'd want to visit nearby, too). Please do keep the thought on the back burner!
@Maggie May- You may not be ready but summer's nearly over and here comes another school year. I'm sure you'll be fine, as it's all a dance...
Summer never even got started here, 26th of June was the last run of dry weather we had, local farmers have fields of hay still sat waiting (and wasting).. It's going to be another hard winter... (hopefully a dry one though!)..
I like Trinity tower too :-D
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