Adelaide B. Shaw
Encore
April 18
I am traveling with my daughter, revisiting memories made 25 years earlier with my husband, memories of Savannah, Georgia, and Beaufort, South Carolina. It is mostly a driving tour, as I cannot walk as far as I once did. We drive through Savannah’s historic district, going from square to square and around each one. Occasionally, I leave the car and walk a short way for a closer look. I snap a photo of the Mercer/Williams house, but skip the tour.
cobblestones and bricks where carriages once rode my wobbly walk
The avenues, the squares and lanes, shaded with live oaks draped with Spanish moss are mostly as I remember them. In contrast to the dark green of the oaks are the lighter green palmettos with their spikey trunks. There are some changes—more construction, more traffic than years ago and a couple of three- tiered parking garages spoiling the looks of an otherwise pretty square.
sidewalk art show dappled sunlight through the trees
wrought iron fence twisting tendrils of ivy
Nearly noon, and a restaurant is opening its doors. The Gryphon Tea Room, once a Scottish Rite Temple, later an apothecary. Upon entering, I sense I was here before. Tiffany -style lights, stained glass, and an apothecary chest are familiar in a faded sort of way, like looking at an old photograph someone else took.
déjà vu finding the key to a locked door
April 19
In the morning we drive to Beaufort, passing low areas of marshland, smelling strongly of rotting vegetation. A quick spin through the center of town, then a leisurely tour of the historic area of large Southern colonial-style homes, two and tree-storied houses with wrap-around porches, large windows and Greek-style columns. It was the film, The Great Santini, that inspired my earlier visit. As was then, and now, the reality doesn’t disappoint.
honeysuckle breeze through winding lanes history's murmurs
April 20
A drive through Bonaventure Cemetery, Savannah’s largest, established in 1846. Not visited before. Perhaps, it’s my age now that sparks an interest in cemeteries. It is quiet, only a few workman moving about. The dead are remembered with crypts, columns, arches, statues, flat markers and upright headstones. Rising through the greenery is an obelisk. With azaleas past their bloom, the cemetery is a study in gray stone, white marble, green from trees and shrubs and brown from fallen leaves. It is peaceful and easy to understand why Victorian families would meet and picnic here when they visited the graves of family and friends.
shifting shadows the lost stories of old gravestones
Tybee Island is on my list to revisit. The lighthouse, then lunch. Not where I had been before, but with a similar view and offering low-country boil. With gusto is how I peel the shrimp and smear my hands and face.
quiet lagoon restaurant chatter is low and slow
The last night in Savannah. New memories blending with the old and nearly forgotten.
the main attraction on River Street: the bridge at sunset
the river shrinks its banks heavy loaded freighter
evening fog imagining the details
April 21
A quick spin through the streets before the flight home.
forsythia the porch light clicks on
About the Author
Adelaide B. Shaw lives in Somers, New York. She has been creating Japanese poetic forms for fifty years. Her books, Travel Souveniers, An Unknown Road, and The Distance I’ve Come, are available on Amazon. She posts published work on http://www.adelaide-whitepetals.blogspot.com.