Mozelle's Grotto

 We were riding Sunday morning between Cecilia and Arnaudville when I saw a grotto I had been meaning to get a picture of. It was among ruins of a house that used to be there. The smell of the pink roses around the white brick grotto was tropical on this November day. We stopped and talked to a family member, a steward of the property who was working across the road. She said she was glad that we stopped. It was the land of her family, an old plantation, and the grotto was for her grandmother, Mozelle. A truly gifted woman, she said, and I could sense that by her long abandoned grotto, still producing large fragrant coral-colored blossoms in grey autumn. I mentioned the roses. Funny you mention them, the steward told me, clippers in hand.  That's what I'm doin, she said. She explained that the house had been moved, and she was working to clip the roses to propagate them, so that they would fill up the land right there and that smell would permeate. She said back in the day, everyone used to have grottos to Mary, but now you don't see them as much. She pointed out how special the white bricks were. She said maybe, now that the house was not there, that she would move Mozelle's grotto across the road, too. I'll help ya, I told her. When we left, she gave us armfuls of pretty lemons off the old lemon tree.