I wish I was in heaven sittin down, I wish the road we were taking wasn't made for breaking down

Motel Wolves, Cherokee, North Carolina

If you're a fan of loose, rambling country rock, Phosphorescent's new album Here's To Taking It Easy is well worth checking out. Along with Bill Callahan's Rough Travel for a Rare Thing, it's been my daily soundtrack lately. "Wolves" is from their previous album, Pride.

I still never win, but I'd love to try it

White-tailed Deer Throw, Cherokee, North Carolina

On a day that threatens that the earth might open up, the birds have stopped their singing, the insects have shut up.

Repent, Cleveland, Tennessee

~from Flannery O'Connor's "Parker's Back"

As he circled the field his mind was on a suitable design for his back. The sun, the size of a golf ball, began to switch regularly from in front to behind him, but he appeared to see it in both places as if he had eyes in the back of his head. All at once he saw the tree reaching out to grasp him. A ferocious thud propelled him into the air, and he heard himself yelling in an unbievably loud voice, "GOD ABOVE!"

He landed on his back while the tractor crashed upside down into a tree and burst into flame. The first thing Parker saw were his shoes, quickly being eaten by the fire; one was caught under the tractor, the other was some distance away, burning by itself. He was not in them. He could feel the hot breath of the burning tree on his face. He scrambled backwards, still sitting, his eyes cavernous, and if had known how to cross himself he would have done it.

His truck was on a dirt road at the edge of the field. He moved toward it, still sitting, still backwards, but faster and faster; halfway he got up and began a kind of forward-bent run from which he collapsed on his knees twice. His legs felt like two old rusted rain gutters. He reached the truck finally and took off in it, zigzagging up the road. He drove past his house on the embankment and straight for the city, fifty miles distant.

Parker did not allow himself to think on the way to the city. He only knew that there had been a great change in his life, a leap forward into a worse unknown, and that there was nothing he could do about it.

sometimes father you and I are like dirty ghosts who wear the same sheets every day, as one more piece of us just dies and dies and dies

Big Chief and Harrah's Casino, Cherokee, North Carolina

Final scene from Werner Herzog's Stroszek

with some ballet moves I removed her shoes, and painted my lips to hers, but still she said "I can't believe you own this attitude."

Dance Academy, Erwin, TN

Questions About Angels
~Billy Collins

Of all the questions you might want to ask
about angels, the only one you ever hear
is how many can dance on the head of a pin.

No curiosity about how they pass the eternal time
besides circling the Throne chanting in Latin
or delivering a crust of bread to a hermit on earth
or guiding a boy and girl across a rickety wooden bridge.

Do they fly through God's body and come out singing?
Do they swing like children from the hinges
of the spirit world saying their names backwards and forwards?
Do they sit alone in little gardens changing colors?

What about their sleeping habits, the fabric of their robes,
their diet of unfiltered divine light?
What goes on inside their luminous heads? Is there a wall
these tall presences can look over and see hell?

If an angel fell off a cloud, would he leave a hole
in a river and would the hole float along endlessly
filled with the silent letters of every angelic word?

If an angel delivered the mail, would he arrive
in a blinding rush of wings or would he just assume
the appearance of the regular mailman and
whistle up the driveway reading the postcards?

No, the medieval theologians control the court.
The only question you ever hear is about
the little dance floor on the head of a pin
where halos are meant to converge and drift invisibly.

It is designed to make us think in millions,
billions, to make us run out of numbers and collapse
into infinity, but perhaps the answer is simply one:
one female angel dancing alone in her stocking feet,
a small jazz combo working in the background.

She sways like a branch in the wind, her beautiful
eyes closed, and the tall thin bassist leans over
to glance at his watch because she has been dancing
forever, and now it is very late, even for musicians.

Isadora Duncan
~Vic Chesnutt

once I dreamed I was dancing with Isadora Duncan
in a silver cafe,
it was a cafe that was not at all near here
she was planning to diversify
and she sang I should do the same
so I whistled to her how I loved her the best

but she sang "I can't believe you own this attitude",
but with some ballet moves,
I removed her shoes
and I painted my lips to hers
and still she sang "I can't believe you own this attitude"
she sang "I can't believe you own this, this attitude"

she needed her beauty sleep
though I didn't want it to sound like that
her mind was occupied,
her hard coffee was cold by then as snow

and she sang "my smile is more than pearly white,
and my dreams are more than you",
she sang "my yellow eyes are more than mirrors,
and my scarf is more, more, more than blue."

and she sang "I can't believe you own this attitude"
yes i sang "I can't believe you own this, this attitude"

she closed her New Directions paperbook
and screamed "there is no shelter in the arts"
she'd been crying all day
but now her eyes they were brighter than the moon

and she sang "my smile is more than pearly white,
and my dreams are more than you",
she sang "my yellow eyes are more than mirrors,
and my scarf is more, more, more, more than blue."

and she sang "I can't believe you own this attitude"
"I can't believe it, I can't believe you own this attitude",
"I can't believe it, I can't believe you own this, this attitude".