Les Têtes de Manglier

New Era Louisiana

Baptism Ladies

Prairie des Femmes poem circa 2006

I wrote this poem a few weeks after we were married when my husband went on a little tour and left me alone in the Prairie des Femmes for the first time.

Moi je reste dedans la Prairie des Femmes
Les hommes sont loin d’ici
C’est ici la femme passe sa vie
Comme tous les femmes de la prairie

Moi et mon chien, Lucy
Après guetter la couche de soleil 
Tous les nuits
La crepescule
Les poules

Je fais le balais
Et j’ai des montagnes et falaises de linge 
J'après monter
Je chante les veilles chansons
J'cris, j’écris, je fais à rien

C’est que des femmes sur la prairie, 
Moi et mon chien, Lucy
On barre bien les portes 
Trop tard dans la nuit
On se dit 
Les hommes sont loin d’ici


J’ai des rêves, des tracas
Des éspoirs, des visions

Les étoiles filantes
A travers de mon front

Queen Evelyna of the Chateau Pecan Sololiquy

We was crossed up dat time! How y'all doin?
Y'all looked at dem pecan trees? I just been talkin 'bout em, I got a lot of trees at my house, dey hadn't been bearin, neither, too much, now maybe ma son when he go out dere to where ma house at, I'm at the Chateau, you know, but out there they have a lot of pecan trees that haven't been bearin for several years, there, too good. They useta make a lot but they told me there's a certain time... I tell you, if you treat em, they got a way you put that.. uh, whatcha call dat stuff around da tree... lime! And dey said it would make but you put dat around dere, don't put it right at it, the tree, but you gotta treat em, but I think they round in October I believe.. or January 1, whatever it is, but I mean, das what they put around em to make em bear! But lately my trees ain't been makin many and I got a lot of trees around out there.. round where I stayed out there... Bayou Chicot...Where the Wittington store was there, I got a grey trailerhouse ova dere, right dere, across the road on the right, dey was on the left I was on the right, that's where I lived right dere, ma family's still dere. But anyway dat pecan tree, dey say some years dey don't make good! Every other year, das what dey say! So I said dey got a way to treat em! Even I see the man talkin with Gary Arnold, got em talkin 'bout dem trees, you put dat lime around em, but you put it so many inches from da tree, and you make a lil' round hole, you know you make a lil hole and den put dat down in dere and den cover it up, den, if it's dry you water it. But if it rain, you know, that'll make it go down into the ground but nowaday, mine don't make hardly nothin no mo'. I beem needin some pecans, but my son dere, he ain't tole me nothin' dis year but he probably go out dere in a few days. And then some of the trees are too old, when dey get too old I don't think they bear too good no mo'. Yeah, it's like us old, when you get arthritis, you know, that makes it difficult! Y'all have a good day I'mma let y'all go! Take care now.

Arrowheading on the Plowed Mound, October 7, 2014

       

A Good Friday Story: Wild Mint

We had been working in the garden all of Holy Week as usual last year, but I kept on reminding my family not to dig on Good Friday. There is a belief that the ground will bleed the blood of Christ if you dig on the day he was crucified. The urge is strong as gravity to garden in the spring, but, resolved not to dig, so as not to disturb the sleeping blood of Jesus that lurks just below the surface on that day only, lest it burst forth under our toils and ruin our Easter completely, we abstained.

So, on Good Friday, we went to Pilette, a place between Lafayette and Broussard, to the newly emptied homestead of our grandparents who had just passed, both in the spring, less than a year apart. We went to see the empty house for the last time. There was certainty that the land would be sold and developed, as it was open land on a major thoroughfare in Lafayette. We did one last walk through the pasture to pick blackberries, gathering honeysuckle and dodging the other uncle's horses who were stalled at the barn. We reminisced about the drive-in theater that was on the property in the 1950's, and the Cajun bands who played there at the Bayou Jamboree. While we were walking, Nonc Dav guided us to the shady spot near the road where they used to find a wild mint growing. Mint is so hardy, it survived in rank competition of the blackberry bushes and tall goldenrod for all these years. We found it in many little patches, very small plants, a lovely spearmint. I imagined that it was in the yard of some homestead off of Pinhook Road 100 years ago, which was then open country, or else that Granny herself had planted it when she was a young bride. We decided to bring some home. So one of us ran back to the house to get a spoon and cup and we dug it up right there. It wasn't until late that night that, shocked, I realized what we had done. And though you think it would have, the ancestral land did not bleed.

Granny's Wild Pilette Mint

Update: After three years of encouragement, I could not get this mint to survive more than one season and it was lost in the garden.

From the Journal of Miss Viola M. Marchand of Baton Rouge, Louisiana

My paternal great grandmother, Viola Marie Marchand Wilson was born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana in the early 1900's. She was the descendant of Catalan and Acadian sugar planters who owned Marchand plantation in St James Parish until it was burned by the Yankees in the War. Viola was born in Baton Rouge and though I never knew her, I know we were a lot alike. I have her journal, from 1925, when she was 16 years old.

She went by "Vi" and like me, kept a journal, loved bottled cokes and to pick blackberries along the levee. Every Monday was a "Blue Monday", a sentiment I have inherited wholeheartedly. She wrote about her love for French class, often practicing what she learned in the journal. She talks about eating watermelon and ice cream  with friends, of visiting family and and of going to downtown Baton Rouge for violet ribbons and soda. She wrote of dates with my great-grandfather, Lee Wilson, and also of another suitor, a cat she calls "Wheeler".

Daily Reminder 1925

Viola M. Marchand 726 Spain Street Baton Rouge, Louisiana

Hark! 'tis the Striking of the calendar; Dead yesterday and unborn tomorrow.

Wheeler Dropped by for a few minutes but didn't stay long, eh? Nothing much, eh?

Elèves à Pilette

We recently said goodbye to two wonderful people and grandparents. Here are a few details from their home in Pilette.

A Ville Plattian in Paris

Europe janvier 2004

Fascinated with the size of the legs of the Eiffel Tower

La belle tour

cheval

cheval et la Tour

vin rouge

maisons in Paris

L

cupid and psyche in real life

U.S.A. = serial killer

that funky monkey in Mons, Belgium

't-Piepenhoes... ahh, I felt so at home

Chocolate shop La Madeline sur L'Isle

flying buttresses!