Issue #2 - Chera Hammons Walks Into a Bar
In Solitude, For Company
A Review: A Poem by Chera Hammons -
They Call This Weather a Land Hurricane
Chera Hammons is unofficially Amarillo’s poet laureate. She’s the person Amarillo would call if we had something that needed commemorating. For example, catastrophic weather events.
They warn us not to leave our houses…
They…
In that pronoun Hammons highlights so much of our city’s ethos. Regular dust storms arrive each spring; however, the Weather Channel, broadcasting from Atlanta, calls them haboobs, which is an Arabic word that means “blasting.” Haboob is not a word we would coin about our own weather. “They”–well-coifed men in slick suits unmussed by the disaster displayed on their green screen backdrops–call it a haboob. We don’t say anything. We keep our mouths shut so our tongues don’t cake in dust. We should have our own local patois of 300 words, or so, regarding the various winds. Why should we import them? Yet the words arrive like the wind. We know not from whence they come, but we circle the wagons in solidarity.
Last spring, we had an event dubbed a “land hurricane.” Seventy-miles-per-hour sustained winds for eight hours. Architects crossed their fingers that design-in-theory would hold up to wind-in-fact. Dante might have called it the Wind of Incontinence. King Solomon named it vanity. Our naming would be vanity, too, because who could hear our word over the din. We’ll know it by the shared barometric ache in our bones.
We are together, we tell each other,
and good thing, too, because the world is getting worse.
In the darkness, the attic aches and cries.
We…
Buried under all the drama of wind, Hammons’ quiet use of “we” is almost missed. This “we” stands at the window watching the world tear itself to pieces. The destruction is worth a few stanzas, but then our narrator sees the miracle shining from the cracks in creation.
The wooden fenceposts bend, seemingly supple in the wind, as if they were again young saplings. She envisions them in their youth, full of sap, roots touching quietly underground; a flipped image of the attic rafters screeching at the nails. Then suddenly, the narrator is in bed touching toes with a lover beneath the covers. A miracle of love and weather, she says.
Our adaptation to the wind in Amarillo is rigidity. Keep our mouths shut against the grit, and our eyes like a drawknife. Whatever the wind brings will only suffocate and blind us. She saw our tenderness and named it, and now our fenceposts throw green shoots.
I hope that this will be our solidarity.
Book Recommendation
Chera has a couple of books coming out this spring: a novel and a book of poetry which includes this poem. Pick up the poetry book, Maps of Injury, at Sundress Publications, or request it from your local bookstore.
They Call This Drink a Land Hurricane Martini
I’ve had this recipe for a long time, and now I’m naming it after Chera’s poem. As noted above, the name is imported, but I’m trying to make this martini as local to Amarillo as possible.
Recipe
1. 2 oz vodka
2. 1/2 oz dry vermouth
3. Shake over ice and strain into a martini glass
4. Drip 1/2 teaspoon Mesquite Absinthe on top
5. Garnish with a sprig of rosemary or windbreak juniper.
This martini has to be made with vodka because the homemade Mesquite Absinthe would cover any flavor gin brings. I used Bomb City Vodka because they distill in Amarillo, and Chera’s last book is called Traveler’s Guide to Bomb City, so win-win.
The brown haze comes from the Mesquite Absinthe I mentioned. I “chunk casked” toasted mesquite in everclear for one year. By itself, it tastes like like you’re drinking a charcoal BBQ grill that’s on fire. Swirled in on top of the shaken martini though provides a smokiness that complements the rosemary. Finally, the oily absinthe layer makes the drink look like our Amarillo sky during a dust storm, and the rosemary appears as a tree bent by the prevailing wind (the Germans use the word Krummholz, but again, it’s not our word).
If one wanted to be loco about local products, one could make her own vermouth. It’s a dry wine that’s been open a few days that you don’t want to drink anymore. Boil it with whatever herbs you think might be good (I use rosemary, basil, juniper berries, and lime peels), then fortify it with vodka.
I’m Seth Wieck. If you would like to read other things I’ve written, please consider buying my small collection of stories here.
Like something in this letter? Despise something? Let me know by responding to the email.
This was issue #2 of “In Solitude, For Company.” Thank you for your company.
Seth Wieck
10906 W. Sundown Lane
Amarillo, Texas 79119