LJ Idol Season 5 Week 6 - Lamp Lights Flicker on Cobblestone
o/`"In a dream beneath the barley moon
lamp lights flicker on cobblestone;
gas lights houses as night comes on each room.
Fire sings the hearth aglow.
"One horse a carriage pulls along,
One sailor sings of salty foam.
As he wanders by,
One comrade joins the song;
One lass begins the journey home.
"One eye lit by lamp draws near,
Red hair covering half a lash;
Long hair tousled
A teasing smile, a smile appears
Then clad in night the redhead laughs.
"In a dream beneath the barley moon
close to waking, I recall
Full red lips, sultry, shy;
the red haired lass, the smiling moon
beneath the lamp light's narrow pall." o/`
----- "Barley Moon" performed by Kenny Klein
She's a city built on ghosts.
The city of St. Augustine is the oldest continuously occupied European city and the oldest port in the continental United States. She's also the site of the first Catholic mass given at a permanent settlement and the only fort in the area never to have been breached or taken by the enemy. Before the arrival of the Spanish, however, the same area was occupied by the Timucua. De Soto encountered them on his trek through what would become the state of Florida. He decimated the tribe, appropriating the villages' food supplies for his army, taking the women as consorts, and forcing the men and boys into slavery. By the time Aviles, the founder of St. Augustine, arrived, the Timucua were nearly gone. They are now an extinct tribe, but this is still their land and their ghosts still remain.
I'm one of those with an insatiable need to touch history, to walk in the same footsteps as those who went before and to experience some of what they must have experienced. In a city so layered in history and built on ghosts, I could not help but fall in love with St. Augustine. The ancient shadows of its existence, past and present, call to me in ways I sometimes barely understand. More importantly, I'm a conduit to that past and a means by which those ghosts can tell their stories.
The ghosts of St. Augustine have, over time, attained world-wide fame. They've been featured on the Discovery, Travel, and National Geographic channels. Paranormal teams have come to the various sites in the city in an attempt to capture orbs on camera, record thermal disturbances, or gain some proof of the existence of these entities. Everyone knows about the haunted doll in one of the museums, the man seen throwing himself repeatedly off the parapets of the castillo, and about the gentleman who stands under a particular oak and stares at passers-by from the Huguenot cemetery. We locals smile indulgently and pass on personal experiences with our resident ghosts as we point tourists to the nearest haunting site --- and there are a lot of them --- and suggest they take one of the famous ghost tours.
There are, however, some you only find out about if you visit often enough and you're lucky enough to be sensitive.
The entire atmosphere of St. Augustine changes when the cathedral clock strikes nine. The quiet seems a little thicker, more profound, and the shadows develop independent movement. With the exception of the bars and a few eateries, the shops have closed for the night. Even so, there's a sense of something waiting and a resumption of activities you can't quite see or hear. The scent of the old city --- a combination of human refuse, spoiling food, ocean brine, and fish ---pervades the area without cause. Clouds scuttle over the moon and the sodium lights flicker uncertainly. Voices --- a sigh, a woman's laughter, a man's sea roughened voice raised in response --- carry to you from nowhere. You're alone except for the ghosts of the city, the product of five hundred years of living history.
Ironically, it was my service dog Freyja who first found the tavern. In my early days of walking the streets of St. Augustine, I generally made it a habit to be on my way home by nine in the evening. This time, for some reason, I hadn't. She perked her ears as though greeting someone she knew and wagged. I turned around and saw a large man wearing a tricorn hat and the livery of an innkeeper standing beneath a real lantern and a tavern sign whose image and words I never could quite catch. Beyond, in the darkness of the tavern, I glimpsed sailors and soldiers being served by bar women. All of them were in period costume.
My curiosity piqued. I'd never seen this particular establishment before, though I had walked St. George Street often enough. It wasn't unusual, especially before the city abolished street performers, to see people in period costume or to hear music which would have been right at home in any of the historical eras spanning St. Augustine's past. This, however, seemed different. Generally, the patrons are tourists and only the employees are in costume. I listened harder and gradually it dawned on me that they weren't even speaking modern English.
I learned Middle English from my mentor and former poet laureate of Colorado, Lillian Lang. The odds of twenty to thirty-some odd people knowing and speaking Middle English consistently didn't seem possible. Something felt decidedly off about this encounter.
I'd nearly crossed the threshold when the innkeeper stopped me and demanded to know what I was doing.
"I...I want to listen to the music," I stammered. I had the eerie feeling that if I'd crossed that threshold, I'd have gone one step to far into a place from which there was no return.
"Sit on the bench there," he said, gesturing to one against the wall and under a window. "You may listen but do not attempt to intrude again."
Sea chanteys are a dying art these days. I listened avidly to the patrons singing, accompanied by accordion, fiddle, and some sort of reed instrument. At times the songs broke into round harmonies, at other times they set a rousing unison which rang against the cobbles.
It was thus that my husband, returning from the errand on which I had sent him with two homemade hot chocolates, found me sitting there with my dog avidly listening to...nothing. I told him about the tavern and he shook his head in gentle disagreement. "There's absolutely nothing there," he affirmed. He was right; there was a tavern about a block down but it was closed for the night and blatantly advertised providing local era color. I rather doubted that extended to speaking Middle English, though. Behind me, where the window had been, was a solid wall.
I've since been back many times hoping to catch the phenomena again but I never have. The locals tell me that the tavern has three manifestations: that which I'd witnessed, which happens only occasionally; a locked and closed shop (not, obviously, the one down the street); and a blank wall. Always, always if you listen at what the locals term Changeover, as the cathedral clock strikes 9 PM, you'll be able to hear that lone reed instrument and the voices raised in song.
Information on St. Augustine, FL
Information on Castillo de San Marcos
Information on the Timucua
This entry has been written for season five of therealljidol. If you liked it, please consider voting for me when the polls go up. I'll post a link and a reminder later.
lamp lights flicker on cobblestone;
gas lights houses as night comes on each room.
Fire sings the hearth aglow.
"One horse a carriage pulls along,
One sailor sings of salty foam.
As he wanders by,
One comrade joins the song;
One lass begins the journey home.
"One eye lit by lamp draws near,
Red hair covering half a lash;
Long hair tousled
A teasing smile, a smile appears
Then clad in night the redhead laughs.
"In a dream beneath the barley moon
close to waking, I recall
Full red lips, sultry, shy;
the red haired lass, the smiling moon
beneath the lamp light's narrow pall." o/`
----- "Barley Moon" performed by Kenny Klein
She's a city built on ghosts.
The city of St. Augustine is the oldest continuously occupied European city and the oldest port in the continental United States. She's also the site of the first Catholic mass given at a permanent settlement and the only fort in the area never to have been breached or taken by the enemy. Before the arrival of the Spanish, however, the same area was occupied by the Timucua. De Soto encountered them on his trek through what would become the state of Florida. He decimated the tribe, appropriating the villages' food supplies for his army, taking the women as consorts, and forcing the men and boys into slavery. By the time Aviles, the founder of St. Augustine, arrived, the Timucua were nearly gone. They are now an extinct tribe, but this is still their land and their ghosts still remain.
I'm one of those with an insatiable need to touch history, to walk in the same footsteps as those who went before and to experience some of what they must have experienced. In a city so layered in history and built on ghosts, I could not help but fall in love with St. Augustine. The ancient shadows of its existence, past and present, call to me in ways I sometimes barely understand. More importantly, I'm a conduit to that past and a means by which those ghosts can tell their stories.
The ghosts of St. Augustine have, over time, attained world-wide fame. They've been featured on the Discovery, Travel, and National Geographic channels. Paranormal teams have come to the various sites in the city in an attempt to capture orbs on camera, record thermal disturbances, or gain some proof of the existence of these entities. Everyone knows about the haunted doll in one of the museums, the man seen throwing himself repeatedly off the parapets of the castillo, and about the gentleman who stands under a particular oak and stares at passers-by from the Huguenot cemetery. We locals smile indulgently and pass on personal experiences with our resident ghosts as we point tourists to the nearest haunting site --- and there are a lot of them --- and suggest they take one of the famous ghost tours.
There are, however, some you only find out about if you visit often enough and you're lucky enough to be sensitive.
The entire atmosphere of St. Augustine changes when the cathedral clock strikes nine. The quiet seems a little thicker, more profound, and the shadows develop independent movement. With the exception of the bars and a few eateries, the shops have closed for the night. Even so, there's a sense of something waiting and a resumption of activities you can't quite see or hear. The scent of the old city --- a combination of human refuse, spoiling food, ocean brine, and fish ---pervades the area without cause. Clouds scuttle over the moon and the sodium lights flicker uncertainly. Voices --- a sigh, a woman's laughter, a man's sea roughened voice raised in response --- carry to you from nowhere. You're alone except for the ghosts of the city, the product of five hundred years of living history.
Ironically, it was my service dog Freyja who first found the tavern. In my early days of walking the streets of St. Augustine, I generally made it a habit to be on my way home by nine in the evening. This time, for some reason, I hadn't. She perked her ears as though greeting someone she knew and wagged. I turned around and saw a large man wearing a tricorn hat and the livery of an innkeeper standing beneath a real lantern and a tavern sign whose image and words I never could quite catch. Beyond, in the darkness of the tavern, I glimpsed sailors and soldiers being served by bar women. All of them were in period costume.
My curiosity piqued. I'd never seen this particular establishment before, though I had walked St. George Street often enough. It wasn't unusual, especially before the city abolished street performers, to see people in period costume or to hear music which would have been right at home in any of the historical eras spanning St. Augustine's past. This, however, seemed different. Generally, the patrons are tourists and only the employees are in costume. I listened harder and gradually it dawned on me that they weren't even speaking modern English.
I learned Middle English from my mentor and former poet laureate of Colorado, Lillian Lang. The odds of twenty to thirty-some odd people knowing and speaking Middle English consistently didn't seem possible. Something felt decidedly off about this encounter.
I'd nearly crossed the threshold when the innkeeper stopped me and demanded to know what I was doing.
"I...I want to listen to the music," I stammered. I had the eerie feeling that if I'd crossed that threshold, I'd have gone one step to far into a place from which there was no return.
"Sit on the bench there," he said, gesturing to one against the wall and under a window. "You may listen but do not attempt to intrude again."
Sea chanteys are a dying art these days. I listened avidly to the patrons singing, accompanied by accordion, fiddle, and some sort of reed instrument. At times the songs broke into round harmonies, at other times they set a rousing unison which rang against the cobbles.
It was thus that my husband, returning from the errand on which I had sent him with two homemade hot chocolates, found me sitting there with my dog avidly listening to...nothing. I told him about the tavern and he shook his head in gentle disagreement. "There's absolutely nothing there," he affirmed. He was right; there was a tavern about a block down but it was closed for the night and blatantly advertised providing local era color. I rather doubted that extended to speaking Middle English, though. Behind me, where the window had been, was a solid wall.
I've since been back many times hoping to catch the phenomena again but I never have. The locals tell me that the tavern has three manifestations: that which I'd witnessed, which happens only occasionally; a locked and closed shop (not, obviously, the one down the street); and a blank wall. Always, always if you listen at what the locals term Changeover, as the cathedral clock strikes 9 PM, you'll be able to hear that lone reed instrument and the voices raised in song.
Information on St. Augustine, FL
Information on Castillo de San Marcos
Information on the Timucua
This entry has been written for season five of therealljidol. If you liked it, please consider voting for me when the polls go up. I'll post a link and a reminder later.