Land of the Yaupon Holly

When the wild-eyed white palomino died, the 
one that ran free among the Yaupon Holly,
little Anne placed a magnolia, the largest she 
could pluck, on his mane.  
 
After a summer, Anne returned to his bones,
wearing her palmetto angel wings and ivory. 
dress from the Christmas pageant the winter. 
before.  She collected the last of his spine, and 
placed it on the pinecone alter of the  
abandoned church that had existed on this 
barrier island full of salt marshes for as long as 
she had played here.   
       
A synsacrum from a golden hawk of two 
summers past laid nearby. And just next to it, on 
the dusty seat of the misericord, was the paper  
mache donkey’s head she made in crafts. 
class.
 
The light came through the stain glass windows. 
red and bloody, exaggerating every feature of 
Christ’s last walk—his wounds, thorny crown,
his every tear, shined sanguine rivulets. The 
faithful on the mount dined on bleeding bread and 
raw fish guts that seemed suspended in the 
crepuscular dim. Inside all this, the sunshine 
became cardinal moonlight.  
  
From the missing door, Anne heard a monstrous 
braying, a demonic parody of her every 
screaming nightmare.  From the fog outside, a 
Sicilian donkey, mangy, muddy, covered in 
briars, his ears twitching like errant wings thrust 
himself into her brimstone light.  
 
He stumbled haltingly, but not out of lameness.  
It was as if an ancient crooked will was coming 
to the fore, as if he was trying to dance on a 
thin wire suspended above the earth.
 
Anne remembered the mainland stories she 
heard.  A circus had gone bankrupt and instead 
of selling the animals to a zoo they abandoned all 
their flock to this small, but still adequate island,
allowing them the chance to run and live wild 
and free.
 
Anne never remembered, in all her visits, ever 
seeing any large bones or hearing any sounds that 
resembled roaring lions, trumpeting elephants,
gibbering monkeys or even whinnying zebras- 
not even a black and white flash prancing 
through the thickening forest green.
 
Maybe, she, thought this circus was not one of 
wild beast?  Maybe it was a big top full of once 
simple beautiful, domesticated beasts?  Beast in 
pleasant childhood dreams?  Maybe this 
braying, hurting, lonely donkey was the last of 
them?
 
 
The donkey reared and then charged Anne. He 
knocked her down, hurting her left shoulder, 
shaking off her wings.    
 
He charged her again, hard with his head.  Anne felt 
herself bruise.  She heard her back crack a little.   It 
was as if the creature was trying to ram every bit of misery and anger into her brain.  
 
She began to worry, lose hope a little bit. Then, she 
remembered the inland stories.  And suddenly knew 
his truth.       
 
“Don’t worry, my friend.  I understand”, she gently 
said to the beast. 
 
He seemed surprised at the sound of her voice. 
He knew it from long ago. The words of a kind 
master.
 
The donkey slowly moved toward her. Its ears 
still shaking with fury.
 
Wincing, Anne got up and faced the beast. 
 
He shuffled back and forth, his hoofs stomping, 
trying to root himself in the ground for another 
charge.          
 
Anne stumbled back, falling down, striking the 
misericord, the paper mache donkey head 
falling into her lap.  
 
She stood up, faced the beast again, this time 
holding the mache donkey head in both her 
hands.
 
The donkey did not charge.  He was looking at 
the donkey head, the palmetto wings, now 
completely disassembled— all the scattered 
palmetto fronds over the dusty church floor 
in front of him.
 
He knew the meaning of this blessing planted 
over two thousand years ago, in the very soul of 
his breed- when the gates of Jerusalem swung 
open and the people shouted Hallelujahs to him 
and the gentle, loving man he carried on his 
back.
 
He felt no choice but to kneel.  Like the man, 
the weight and joy of her were enough for him 
to bear.
 
Anne climbed onto his back, held his mane tight, 
and they trodded slowly back to the shore and 
her boat swaying gently in the ebb tide.     
 
“You’ve done well, my faithful friend,” she called 
to him as she paddled away.
 
For twenty summers she would come back alone,  
just to visit.  On the 21st summer she came back 
with a baby carriage and her blessing wrapped 
inside.  All three would spend the day sitting  
under the shade of Yaupon Hollys taking in the 
joyous sun.