Clyde Kessler

Portrait of a Writer Age Ten

Some kids are playing softball in a pasture. One of them watches her uncle stumbling down a driveway. The man is toting a whiskey bottle, then stops beside some bulrushes and cattails, and tosses the empty bottle in. A blackbird flies up to a dead plum tree at the edge of the spring branch.

The girl walks off from the other kids, strides towards the backyard of her uncle's house. An old bee gum has a few workers sunning near the entrance.

She walks through the yard to the next house, goes in through the kitchen door, and sits at the table, and begins writing her first story. There are drunks and bees in the story, but she wads the paper up and starts over. Then she hides two sheets of paper behind a dusty box that holds her father's crafting boards.

taste the honeycomb.
whittle an apple-wood spoon.
lock the door for words.