Meditation on St. Augustine in some Incidents in the Life of My Uncle Arly

Like St. Augustine, my uncle Arly, too, wandered. Perhaps not so widely, nor so far. But, then, who among us can aspire to such heights as Augustine.

Arly, for Albemarle, though he was Arly almost from birth. His mother, my grandmom, got the name from a book she was reading. She liked the sound of it, and repeated it endlessly to my grandfather during her pregnancy. In the book it was the name of a man, but gramma thought it would of worked equally well for a girl, should that occur. The women in her circle had sons and daughters named Tom, Lou, Ann, Bill, Bob, Bobby, Bobbie. Albemarle appealed to gramma's contrary streak (grampa's bane, and amply communicated to her son). But grampa never used the name, from the beginning referring to his second son as Arly, many times, at volume, a fact all gramma's cajoling, withholding and weeping could not alter. Augustine had naming problems as well.

The grandparents were not specially religious. Being farmers their religion was mostly the seasons and the weather; church service on Sunday took second place to a storm coming in and the crops still in the field. Arly's religious education was often foregone to the clack and rumble of the harvester, Arly riding the rising mound of barley that spilled from the chute into the wagon, his job to spread it about and fill the corners. He'd drag himself into the house at dusk, clothed in a fur of husks and chaff.

Pool old Augustine. Of course old Augustine had more to squander than my uncle Arly. Not that Albemarle was particularly inept or anything. It's known he taught spelling for a while, not so great a thing as rhetoric, certainly, but not a small thing either, considering how far we've fallen from those heady days of Greece. My father never explained to me what Nicodemus pills were. Arly sold them now and then, he says. I guess they're off the market now as I've never found them on the shelves at the pharmacy. Propter's does still make a pill for the relief of nagging backache pain. And Arly must have been a powerful preacher to make a living at it, even a small one. Perhaps dad was a bit jealous, always referring to it as "merely yelling."

Arly's greatest pleasure was sunsets. He spent every evening gazing on sunsets. I guess the Timskoop hills are known for sunsets. I went there once, a few years ago, hoping to see one of those fiery sunsets Arly loved so much. Dad was always such a stick in the mud. He inherited the farm from grampa, of course, and he spent every evening of his life, far as I know, in the barn repairing tools and tack, milking the cows, fattening the calves, mucking out the stalls. He never once, that I know, stood in the field, staring at the glazing colors of sunset, wondering about life, and who put that orb in the sky, or being amazed at the whole of it. I borrowed the farm truck one weekend, to go to those Timskoop hills. Took me all day, and I felt kinda humble thinking how long it must of took Arly to walk all the way there, specially considering his shoes being half a size too small. Then it rained the whole time I was there, and I had to go home without ever finding out what Arly was looking at. Augustine was a piker, flinching away from that "unchangeable light."

Says Augustine: "Suddenly a voice reaches my ears from a nearby house ... and in a kind of singsong the words ... 'Take up, read.'"

Words. Augustine read and said a lot of them. He read himself down, read himself up, and finally read himself 'round on himself like some kind of moebius strip or something. I guess Arly's conversion is something less spectacular. It certainly gave him reason to be embarrassed, though he never confessed to such. Maybe he was ready to come home at last, and that railway ducat, first class, no less, seemed just the ticket. Or maybe it seemed like Himself, speaking out of the burning bush, when the brambles, no doubt just shivering in a breeze, caught Arly's attention and revealed to him that white square, probably hung up in the thorns. So he reaches down to pick it up and ...

I'll always wish I could of seen uncle Arly and that cricket. Dad doesn't say if Arly ever went cross eyed. I know I would of, staring at a cricket that clumb itself onto my nose. Forty-three years seems a long life for a cricket. I expect most crickets only live a year, usually, two at most. That's why I sometimes have to think that cricket was more an allegorical cricket, or an Arlygorical cricket, if you can excuse the play on words. Maybe it was just metaphorical clinging; maybe it's like the treasure of the humble, hearing a simple tune and being cheered up by it. He certainly seems to have given up looking at sunsets, his whole pleasure just listening to that pea-green hood ornament.

Forty-three years is a long time for a single pair of shoes, too, though they was pretty well gone to splinters, as my dad says. I guess old Augustine never did really give up words altogether. He could of never wrote those confessions if he did. And it seems Arly never gave up preaching entire, though he was silent, too, a lot of the time. I kind of see him like a Franciscan, wandering around, never settling down. He never did come back to the farm, except right at the end. Augustine says coming back to the farm is just an allegorical coming back to a lost faith, but that's not how I figure it was with Arly. I bet it was mostly coincidence that he was back here, just down the road from Borley-Melling, when he was so near his time. Used to be they called it fate, though with free will and all the very idea of fate kind of got shoved into the background. But, what ever it was, fate, or just a random walk, Arly wound up his travels, and his life, right nearby the very house he was born to. Dad says he used to love riding the grain wagon home, lying back in that great big heap of barley, staring at the wide colorful sky, while the wagon jounced over the stubbly field. I've tried it. You kind of sink into the grains, but not all the way. Kind of like you sink mostly into water, but if you take a deep breath and hold it, and waggle your hands a bit, you just float there real serene and quiet. In any event, I'm glad Arly got back to where he could feel that feeling again before he passed from this world.

Dad says they buried him, cricket, ticket and shoes-too-tight, altogether in that grave. Dad wouldn't tell me where it is. Said the leafy thicket got rooted out, that there's a field of barley growing there now. I guess Dad thought I'd spend my wandering time trying to figure out where Arly's lying, instead of haring off 'round the countryside. And I guess he was right. I've lived right here all my life. Never had a younger brother, either; Dad figured one was enough these days, what with air-conditioned farm machinery and all the other technological refinements our age is heir to. I'd of liked to wander a bit. I'd of liked to meet old Albemarle. I don't think I'd of liked to meet old Augustine. Man who can talk like that likely'd never shut up, and I like my evenings quiet, just me and Mary, sitting and reading, laughing occasional, sharing a joke or a favorite line of poetry. She says she's tired of hearing about uncle Arly, though, being as I've read it out so many times.

I expect you haven't heard it, though. That's why I'm writing, that's why I said all this, so's you'd have an idea what his story is all about before you read it. I've no idea how Edward Lear came to hear the story. Anyway, here it is, Incidents, as he called it, In The Life Of My Uncle Arly:

Oh, my aged uncle Arly,
Sitting on a heap or barley,
Through the silent hours of night.
Close beside a leafy thicket,
There his hat and railway ticket,
There his ever faithful cricket.
(But his shoes were far too tight.)

Long ago in youth he squandered
All his goods away and wandered
To the Timskoop hills afar.
There, on fiery sunsets glazing,
Every evening found him gazing,
Singing "Orb, you're quite amazing,
How I wonder what you are."

Like the ancient Medes and Persians,
Always by his own exertions
He subsisted on those hills.
Whiles by teaching children spelling,
Or at times by merely yelling,
Or at intervals by selling
Propters Nicodemus pills.

While upon his evening rambles
He perceived the moving brambles
Something square and white disclose.
Twas a first class railway ticket,
But, on stooping down to pick it
Off the ground, a pea-green cricket
Settled on my uncle's nose.

Never, never more, oh never,
Did that cricket leave him, ever,
Dawn or evening, day or night.
Clinging as a constant treasure,
Chirping with a cheerious measure,
Wholly to my uncle's pleasure.
(Though his shoes were far too tight.)

So, for three and forty winters,
Til his shoes were worn to splinters,
All those hills he wandered o'er.
Sometimes silent, sometimes yelling,
Til he came to Borely-Melling,
Near his old ancestral dwelling.
(Though his shoes were far too tight.)

Lying on a heap of barley,
Died my aged uncle Arly,
And they buried him one night.
Close beside the leafy thicket,
There his hat and railway ticket,
There his ever faithful cricket.
(But his shoes were far too tight.)