[114] Holding A Life

The village was buzzing with the musings of everyday, as the rhythm of the pestle hit the bottom of the mortar—the clap in the in-between—the paddy husked, the winnowing moving chaff from grain. The old man drying snake skins in the intense sun of the day and another man—a goat skin to use in the making of a drum—meant to beat into the night under the light of a thousand stars and the strength of cotton trees rising up high, strumming the darkness of a village night accompanying a culture holding a life.