Poems by Elizabeth L. Harris
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February, 2008
Stone County, Arkansas: Margaret’s Room
by Elizabeth L. Harris
Elizabeth lives in the Ozark Mountains of North Arkansas near the banks of the White River. A few hundred yards upstream the White is joined by Sylamore Creek, and farther north the Buffalo National River is a major contributor to the flow, especially apparent during flood times.
It’s impossible to tell if Margaret made her bed before she went to work yesterday, but I suspect she did because she likes things neat, fabrics hung or folded, displayed to their best advantage. She has cottons, linens, antique Irish lace, heavy wool blankets in surprising pastels, bolts of silk; things given to her, inherited from her Irish family, purchased in Greece where her sister lives, or locally from various craftspeople. The allure of them sometimes claimed her last dollar or drachma.
This morning her wooden bed, with its antique head and foot boards, is in its usual place beside the nightstand in the corner, though the bedding is in disarray; pillows at the foot, articles of wet clothing, mattress cover loose above a filthy bed skirt. More mud-streaked fabric, perhaps a top sheet, hangs unevenly below the foot board. Scraps of photos, artwork, clothing and letters litter the floor. A flared white lampshade forms a tilted bridge between the bed stand and the bed.
Iridescent snowflake motes swirl upward, weightless as dust. Two narrow boards that were not necessarily part of this room, or even this house, when the sun went down last night protrude over the top of the wall. Where yesterday there had been a ceiling and a roof, these broken slats now provide the only cover. A dark article of clothing, perhaps a dress or robe, hangs twisted from one of these planks caught by its sleeves. It dangles just above the headboard, against the gashed white wall.
Beyond this room is the rest of the house, similarly destroyed, and beyond the house the road and all along the road the other houses, transformed at least as much. Beyond this road is our town with its hospital smashed, doctors’ offices crushed, ambulance service swept away. As well as I thought I knew this land, I can’t remember what should have stood here in that empty space or where those piles of siding, splintered trees, and crumpled vehicles were before last night. Because the tornado extinguished the power, cable and phone lines for the entire county we don’t know how far this damage stretches or who else was in its path. I only know what I can see. I have driven as close as I could and then walked to Margaret’s house. I know this was her bedroom and that she wasn’t home when the tornado came.
© Elizabeth L. Harris