Joe
Pye’s World
By Fannie V. Favre
Gulfport MS
When Pye first saw
the gnarled live oak
he heard a silent call
to draw new strength from ancient
roots
and healing for his soul.
For though a mighty limb lay dead
beside the bole, the tree
lived on. Pye touched his nubbed
right arm
and let the pain go free.
The veil began to lift the day
Pye’s shrouded heart let through
the ray of hope that heavy hearts
might learn to dream anew.
Below the hill where stood the oak
there sprang a sweet, clear stream
that formed a slough round cypress
knees
and rounded out Pye’s dream.
Pye bought the land and built his
house
upon the red clay hill.
He paid the price with pole-size pine
dragged down to Lawson’s mill.
Pye’d worked at Lawson’s twenty years
‘til a grinder took his hand.
He’d lost his job, then lost his
wife,
to Lawson’s right-hand man.
A son Pye’d lost in Viet Nam;
a daughter died at birth.
Now Pye’s tree, his house and pond
were all he had on Earth.
As Pye removed a sapling here
and there, and built the wall
of stone around the spring, he built
his life around it all.
Content, at last, within his world,
Pye let a few friends come
to sit a spell beneath his tree,
at peace on Joe Pye’s Pond.