A Circle Unbroken

I’ll never forget, back in the day, when I was a student at LSU, a couple of friends, good ole boys from Slidell, Bruce and Bob, who turned me on to that historic record album, “Will the Circle Be Unbroken?” a collection of music and songs from our American heritage, performed and sung by the nitty gritty dirt band.

Their musical mission seemed to be to bring some classic American folk music back into the consciousness of our “turned on-tripped out” generation. The Nitty Gritty Dirt band guys were accompanied by some old-timers, including Mother Maybelle Carter and Doc Watson. The most vivid audible memory of that album was the voice of Doc Watson, a blind master of guitar flat-pickin, accompanied by his son, Merle. Little did I know at that time that the providential leading of an Almighty Lord would establish my life’s most productive and most satisfying years in a mountainside homestead in the same county where Doc Watson had lived, Watauga County, North Carolina. The county seat is Boone, where on the corner of King and Depot streets, you’ll see this parkbench with a bronze sculpture of Doc, accompanied, for a brief moment in time, by yours truly.

David Holt, an historian of American folk music, later conducted interviews, with video, of Doc in his home, near Deep Gap, where he and Rosalee had raised Merle. In those 1977 interviews, Doc would talk about their life in the Blue Ridge, their homestead and heritage. He would often mention his wife Rosalee. Maybe you could say. . . the circle was not unbroken between my appreciation of Doc’s legacy and the fulfillment of my own destiny. Back in my day, before i had moved to Boone, the Lord had enabled me to record two record albums. Something for Everyone Songs of Rowland was recorded in Nashville, in 1977, thanks to Tom Behrens. Later, in 1978, I recorded a Christian testimonial album, Revelation 5:9, in Asheville. Thanks to Eddie Swann and friends. I greatly appreciate the ensemble of musicians who helped me record those songs, old and new, on Revelation 5:9. One of those friends was David Holt, who happened to be living across Garren Creek Road from me at that time. I greatly appreciate his old-style frailing banjo in that session, with a little help from me friends, an ensemble of local musicians, including Dan Lewis on harmonica, on that old hymn from Appalachian history, Life’s Railway to Heaven. Life's Railway to Heaven Years after that recording, after Pat and I had moved to Boone, I was singing some of those songs at the Watauga County fairgrounds, North Carolina state fair. Doc’s widow, Rosalee, was listening, seated in the audience. After my set, she spoke to me kindly, commending me on my songs. As I said earlier, I’ll never forget the sound of voice when I first heard him in 1972. And I’ll never forget Rosalee’s appreciation of my song, later. As Bob Hope and Bing Crosby used to sing, long before I was born: “Thanks for the memories.” That will be my greeting to Doc, Rosalee and Merle, when I meet them in that heavenly circle in which will never be forever unbroken! King of Soul

Cleaning the Mess

an excerpt from chapter 19 of Glass half-Full

Marcus opened a can of turpentine. He tipped it slightly so that its upper contents would spill onto a rag that lay on the parking lot next to his car. With the rag partially soaked, he began rubbing on the driver’s-side door. Someone had painted a black swastika on it while he was working late. His cell phone rang. He opened it, looked at the mini-screen, saw “Grille,” which stoodfor Jesse James Gang Grille. In the last few days, however, whenever hewould see “Grille” displayed as the caller ID, it registered in his mind as “Girl,” meaning Bridget, because she would often call from there. “Hi.” “Marcus, have you heard about the explosion?” “No, where?” “At the Belmont Hotel, about 20 minutes ago. That’s where the FEF convention is. “Aleph told me he would be going there tonight. Has anybody been down there to see what’s happening?” “Kaneesha left here right after we heard it, but she hasn’t returned. I don’t think anybody’s getting in there for awhile. The police have got the whole block barricaded.” “I want to find out if anything has happened to Aleph. Don’t you think he would have left there by now?” “The TV News says the police aren’t letting anyone in or out except rescue workers.” “I’m headed over there in a few minutes, as soon as I get the car-door cleaned up. Someone painted a swastika on it.” Glass half-Full

Purloined Poetry

Once upon a time, I knew a fiddler up on a roof. . . Under the canopy of memory. . . I don’t remember growing older. When did they? and a secret chord that David pleased that pleased the Lord Though I have walked through the shadow of death, I did fear no evil. for Jesus’ resurrection has reassured me. . . So even though some things went wrong, I stand before the Lord of song, with mostly on my tongue: Alleluia! On the other hand. . . All lies and jest, still a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest. Let it be, let it be, the wistful words of wisdom… the several things that I’ve done all right and it’s singing songs Ole man River; he don’t say nothing; he just keep rollin’ along. He just keep rollin’. . . way back. . . way back. through the Mississippi darkness, rolling down to the sea. . . We came to Big Muddy and we forded that flood on the Tennessee mare and the Tennessee stud. Like a circle in a spiral, like a wheel within a wheel. . . looking out from that crummy hotel room in Washington square. . . I could have told you, Vincent, this world was never meant for. . . Where have all the flowers gone, anyway, long time passing? Let the Life go by; I don’t care as long as I. . . can be on the street where we live.

I’ve looked at life from both sides now, and still somehow, it’s life’s infusions I recall. . . at age 74. . . I am I said and no one heard, not even the chair. But hey! It’s all good, y’all. I’m here to tell ya. . . so Jah say And even though some things went wrong, I stand before the Lord of so song with nothing on my tongue but Allelluia. Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no . . . .whatever happens.

A Life Journey

From Roncevaux pass across the channel, around Brittania, up to isle of Mann, a strain of Euro mankind turned westward. A young man sailed for the new world, through the harbor where the tired, the weary and the huddled masses were yearning to be free. Round and round, down and down, through mountains, southward,the people and the young man trod; they floated, by wagon and by train,through rain, down to the sunny South. At the father of American waters the Carey ancestors floated down the Euphrates of the new world, to Ur of those called to the delta, to the bayou, almost to great Gulf. And there, Pilgrim was born, in Ur of the new world, the land of many waters, where he was raised in the Roman way of worship, with host and chalice, balanced out with a sprig or two of Baptist faith, lingering in the pages of time, and he grew up and he traipsed the halls of acadamia, searching for paradise lost, comprehending the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune that flesh is heir to. And after he had grown some, he took to himself an orange, and he noticed the veins in the leaf, and the light and the balance. Then he was in that stage of life when a man must discover his own path, and so he turned eastward, to the panhandle of health and wealth, the peninsula of sunshine. He prospered; he figured out a thing or two, but after a season or three, he gravitated to the land of the high country, over themountain and through the Appalachian woods to the buncombe of liberated free youth, guided homeward by the face of an a an angel. . . drawing him to a destiny yet to be determined. . . he knew not what.

As Roland had sounded his horn at Ronceveau in ancient times the young man sounded his songs out upon the mountains of destiny, the turntables of time, contemplating the little big horn and the windows of the world, among other things. It was all good; but trouble, tribulation and vows unvowed compelled him back westward . . . to the land of open spaces, to Waco, and no more whacko whipso strangeo. And so he had an encounter with the One who broke the seals of time and destiny, the ancient seals of creation, destruction and new creation.

Then later. . . after an unsettled runaround in the wild west, he returned to his adopted high country home, he met the woman of his destiny, and they settled into the good, prolific life on the old trail where Boone had found the way westward, back in the day, where spring’s new hope, born of leaves decaying, settles into the ancient Appalachian forests of time.

Glass half-Full

Deep South 1964

from chapter 5 of King of Soul But Liberty and Justice for All is not something that just happens. As compatriots with liberation and deliverance, liberty and justice emerge triumphant from the very embattlements of human history. Where their zealous advocates manage to grab some foothold in the landscape of human struggle, freedom is fleeting not far behind. Noble aspirations are all summoned up when the careless slayings of men demand value more sacred, more holy, than the mere clashing of weapons and the expiration of breathing bodies. In our present exploration’s story, the bad news is: there is an inevitable outflow—the shedding of blood—which propels violence to ever higher levels of atrocity. The good news is: where there’s shedding of blood, Soul is not far beneath. In the summer of 1964, all of these elements of human struggle converged in an unprecedented way. Way down south, in the piney woods and sweltering fields of Mississippi, a new activist strain of blood-red camellia was taking root in that freshly-tilled civil rights black delta loam. As God had heard the cry of Abel’s blood arising from Edenic soil, he heard now the beckoning of enshrouded laborers, those dead and these living. Their muted cries called forth liberation; they demanded deliverance. So while black folk of the deep South were struggling to register their right to vote as Americans, a vast brigade of like-minded souls from other regions caught a whiff of their newly-planted liberty, and so the new brigades took it upon themselves to go down to Mississippi and lend a hand.

Go down, Moses, was the call. Go down, collective Moses. There were many who heard that call; there was even a man named Moses, Bob Moses from Harlem. He, and others who stood with him against discrimination, planted themselves in Mississippi at the crossroads of injustice and opportunity. Down here in the verdant lap of Dixie where the honeysuckles twine sweetly and the slaves had mourned bitterly, a battalion of wayfaring strangers from far and near came to cultivate the new growth offreedom. They were filling a void in the whole of the human soul. Robbed of freedom, the Soul of Man wails out a distress call; then in regions afar, theSoul of Man hears, and resonates with action. Deep calls unto deep. https://www.amazon.com/King-Soul-Louis-Carey-Rowland/dp/1545075115 Glass half-Full

London 1937

My novel, Smoke, published in 2011, begins a story set in 1937. The first scenes take place in London, May 12, Coronation day for King George VI, grandfather of the present King Charles. For the love of a woman can change the course of the world. As Helen’s face had launched a thousand Greek ships, so the affections of an American divorcée had turned the tide of royal authority from one brother to another. From one duke to another. Made ostensibly of sterner, though stammering, stuff than his older liege, Albert--soon to be called George VI--would, in only a few short hours ascend those few hallowed steps in Westminster to sit upon the throne of Edward, James, Henry and all those other regents who had ever commanded the armies or fleets of British empire. The people of England were expectant, exultant. No mean Mr. Mustard here. No, they were ready to receive a new king, now that the whole affair of Edward’s abdication had resolved itself into the ashtray of history. And all the more so, since the role of the regents was now largely ceremonial, having little effectual responsibility except to maintain that proverbial stiff upper lip with a vigilant eye upon the horizon where an eternal sun was perpetually setting, but never, of course, on the British Empire. God save the King, but it would be Mr. Baldwin, or Mr. Chamberlain, Mr. Churchill, orsome such privileged commoner who would ultimately compel English hearts and guts to bear sacrificial defence of their storied shores.

The story begins as the American businessman, Philip, accompanied by his friend, Nathan, a Londoner, are looking into a shop window, when suddenly an old man takes hold of Nathan’s arm and promptly collapses on the pavement, dead. Then the London bobby shows up. . . The policeman asked Nathan if there was anything else he had noticed about the deceased. “He handed this to me,” said Nathan, “even as he was falling to the ground.” It was a folded white paper, with this handwritten message largely scrawled in black ink: Wallris-- John Bull’s ransom will smoke out the black shirts tomorrow. If not, your bridge could burn. Chapman .. . . while a crowd of people stood and stared. They’d seen his face before. Nobody was really sure if he was from the House of Lords. https://www.amazon.com/Smoke-L-Carey-Rowland/dp/1495330834 Glass half-Full

Tree Fallen

Fallen tree down on the ground, did your demise send out a crashing sound? I know the Lord who created you. I know the Lord who laid you in my view.

How many years did you stand, tall and strong, before it all went wrong? How many seasons came and went before to forest floor you’re sent? I wander slowly in these woods, shaded by all these leafy hoods. Clear blue sky, in the heavens high, did you send wind to make trees fly? Flying downward to the ground, did this tree make a crashing sound? How many years did this stand tall, before the crashing, fatal fall?

Losing leaves, bleeding sap, this mighty tree laid down to take a nap. Timber, timber, standing tall, did you cry out in God’s fateful call? Oh mighty tree, oh mighty tree, methinks you’re a lot like me. Someday I shall fall down like you, when I then join the heavenly crew. Glass half-Full

Deep South 1964

an excerpt from King of Soul But Liberty and Justice for All is not something that just happens. As compatriots with liberation and deliverance, liberty and justice emerge triumphant from the very embattlements of human history. Where their zealous advocates manage to grab some foothold in the landscape of human struggle, freedom is fleeting not far behind. Noble aspirations are all summoned up when the careless slayings of men demand value more sacred, more holy, than the mere clashing of weapons and the expiration ofbreathing bodies. In our present exploration’s story, the bad news is: there is an inevitable outflow—the shedding of blood—which propels violence to ever higher levels of atrocity. The good news is: where there’s shedding of blood, Soul is not far beneath. In the summer of 1964, all of these elements of human struggle converged in an unprecedented way. Way down south, in the piney woods and sweltering fields of Mississippi, a new activist strain of blood-red camellia was taking root in that freshly-tilled civil rights black delta loam. As God had heard the cry of Abel’s blood arising from Edenic soil, he heard now the beckoning of enshrouded laborers, those dead and these living. Their muted cries called forth liberation; they demanded deliverance. So while black folk of the deep South were struggling to register their nright to vote as Americans, a vast brigade of like-minded souls from other nregions caught a whiff of their newly-planted liberty, and so the new brigades took it upon themselves to go down to Mississippi and lend a hand. Go down, Moses, was the call. Go down, collective Moses.

King of Soul

When in the course of American events it becomes necessary for the people to dissolve the political bands which had previously connected them with insurrectionists magamaniacs, and to assume, among the powers and the rights afforded us in our Constitution, the separate and corrective station to which Nature and our Bill of Rights entitle us, a decent respect for the opinions of mankindrequires that we should declare the violations of our Rule of Law that impel us toto the corrective action.

We hold these principles, mentioned here, to be memorable in the minds of ourfellow-citizens, that we are all challenged by our Constitution and our judicial precedents to conduct ourselves in a manner that is law-abiding, peaceful and productive toward the general welfare of our citizens and our institutions. The securing of our rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, requires us to institute governments, on the federal, state and local levels, deriving their powers from the consent of the people who str governing and being governed. And when any holder of public office becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to remove him, thus rebuilding a lawful foundation on Constitutional principles, and re-organizing powers that are appropriate for obtaining Safety and Security. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed with magamania intentions. Therefore. . . a long train of abuses and usurpations compels US the People to expel the chief offender for the sake of the preservation and continuance of our Democratic Republic. To advance our grievances and our intent to remove the offender who now occupies the oval office, let the Facts be submitted to a candid world: 1. He has refused to govern by Rule of Law, choosing rather to rule by his social media posts and the blind obedience of his foxy-woxy sycophants, who appear to have no consciousness of Constitutional authority or Rule of Law.

2. He has recruited proud boys, oath-bleepers and three percent of the foxes who steal the vines of Law and order. . . to mount an insurrectionagainst our Congress, with the intent to obstruct their Constitutional duties and subvert the counting of Electoral ballots so that he might continue, illegally, to occupy the office of the presidency, January 6, 2021.

3. Having no summons from any state Governor, as is required by our Constitution, he has called out soldiers to attack, and even to kill citizens in three of our United States, because they were making lawful use of their Constitutional Rights of Freedom of Assembly and Freedom of Speech. 4. Having no declaration of war from Congress, as would have been required by our Constitution, he took it upon himself to kill and terrorize citizens of a foreign nation, imposing a murderous war on Iran, and thereby disrupting international trade routes, and igniting monetary inflation that imposes hardship on US the People of the United States, all because he wanted to start a war. We therefore, the citizens of the United States of America call upon our Representatives and our Senators to remove the offending oval office occupant, so that we may continue in maintaining a government of the People, by the People and for the People, instead of being led by a self-obsessed powermonger who understands no principles of government of the people, by the people and for the people of these, our United States of America. Glass half-Full

North star for middle America, Chicago. . . the first time I visited there was on a road trip back in summer of ’71, between Ohio and Wisconsin, parking my old ’63 Olds Skylark in a parking lot at the Circle campus of University of Illinois. I had taken a break from selling dictionaries door to door, for the Southwestern Company of Nashville. down in Oak Hill, Ohio, for the Southwestern Company of Nashville. I parked the car and left it there for a few days so I could visit friends who were working in a summer ccamp in Wisconsin. Metropolitan Chicago represents the great middle of our nation. In my lifetime, I can remember the 1968 Democratic convention, where young people, college students from all over, gathered to protest against the draft, and against racial discrimination. The mayor of Chicago didn’t like what the protesters were doing.

But that was a long time ago. Today I’m in Evanston, just up the lakeshore from Chicago, traipsing on the campus of Northwestern University, founded in the early 1800’s, a fascinating place… founded as the first great university in the middle of our country. Wandering around now on campus, I see there is no shortage of the liberal perspective in the middle of the country. Here’s a flyer I found on a bulletin board.

Now I’m no leftie. I am a Christian, centrist. I notice that my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, taught, in His sermon on the mount, that we should be peacemakers, we should feed people who are hungry, provide shelter for those who are homeless, and welcome strangers. And just now, I notice that our former president, Barack Obama, has made some comments that serve well to gravitate our attention back to that Christian message, and away from the magamania that has captured the oval office and its current occupant. Here’s a church sign in Chicago that gets it right, or left or whatever you call helping people instead of rejecting them.

King of Soul

Oh Canada!

Back in the day, Gordon sang. . .” So they looked to the future and what did they see? They saw an iron road running from the sea. . . up the St. Lawrence, all the way to Gasp’e, swinging our hammers and drawing our pay. Look away, said they, all across this mighty land, from the eastern shore to the western strand” . . . Along came Joni, singing . . .”On the back of a cartoon coaster, in a blue TV screen light, I drew a map of Canada. . . Oh, Canada!” And Neil, 1970, singing about the trouble being generated across the border, in America, and on the side of the world, Vietnam, in the 1960’s. . . “Blue blue windows behind the stars, yellow moon on the rise. . . big birds flying across the skies, throwing shadows on our eyes.” In 2026, donald trump has been trying to pull the wool over Mark Carney’s eyes, trying to cover the Canadian Prime Minister’s vision with maga madness, trying to pull his maralago tricks on the Canadian PM, as if he could fool a leader who had, as Mark Carney told the Europeans recently, “ran the Bank of Canada during the financial crisis, and ran the bank of England during Brexit” The present occupant of the oval was trying to throw his weight around to get Mark Carney to tow the line for trump’s bull***t hegemony. But now the Canadian leader has forced into a captive position in which donald has received a message, something like. . . do not pass go; do not collect 200 dollars, American or otherwise. . . Instead, Mark Carney went to the Europeans and explained. “Canada did not impose the first tariff, the second tariff, the third, the fourth 5th, the sixth or seventh tariffs. Every single tariff in this confrontation was initiated by U.S. . . . . .Canada supplies to the US 60% of its crude oil, 98% of electricity on the borders, 73% potash for agricultural fertilizer, 87% of softwood lumber, 67% of our nickel for defense and 100% of the fresh water to the Great Lakes.

When a journalist asked, “Can Canada win this?”. . . speaking of trump’s bully tactics for controlling Canada, Mark Carney answered. “We already have.” As for the bully across the border, the king of maralago. . . this American writer says: Read ‘em and weep, donald! You’ve been outdrawn in the shootout at the Brussels corral. Do not pass Go; do not collect anything! Paraphrasing Gordon Lightfoot’s song from back in the day. . . “So Mark looked to the future and what did he see? A Canadian nation, glorious and free! Oh Canada, glorious and free! Glass half-Full

Murder Most Foul 1963

an excerpt from chapter 4, King of Soul.

Mississippi, 1963: If ghosts could speak, they would probably confirm what Uncle Cannon was saying. As he sat on the lowered gate of his black Ford pickup truck, with one leg on the ground and the other swinging beneath the tailgate, the old Mississippian spoke some of his thoughts about the state of affairs in the state of Mississippi. His friend, Geehaw Kent stood listening. “The murder of Medgar Evers was a tragedy: he was a young man,” Cannon said. “He had slogged his way across Europe, along with thousands of other Allied soldiers, to arrive triumphantly in Germany and then knock the hell out of the Nazi war machine. So he contributed to that great collective effort through which we won the big war. But then he came back to Mississippi and was told—what the hell—to go to the back of the bus.” “So, at the end of his homeward journey, Medgar entered, almost involuntarily, into another great war, but it was a war of a different kind. It was an old war that had been started by old men. That is to say: men who we think of as old because they had lived and died in the prior era, and yet some of them were still living—men who, in days past, had retained, even cultivated, the prejudices and the limitations of their ancestors. “Last year, only six months before Kennedy was killed, Medgar Evers was shot dead in his own front yard in Jackson Mississippi. He had just come from speaking to some brothers and sisters at New Jerusalem church.” “Now, this summer, you know we had bunches of them starry-eyed college students from up north come down here and try and help the Negras get the vote. Over in Meridian, a few of them were trying to get the blacks organized to boycott a store that wouldn’t hire some of them same blacks who shopped there every day, every week, all year long for years and years. Then about two months ago, three of them students disappeared. Kinda mysterious, don’t you think?” https://www.amazon.com/King-Soul-Louis-Carey-Rowland/dp/1545075115 Listen: Underground Railroad Rides Again

Death in London 1937

The old fellow, quite dapper in a brown derby that shielded bright blue eyes over apale, fleshy face, double-chinned over a red bow-tie, seemed nevertheless to be slowly collapsing beneath the burden of his own weight. He clutched Nathan’s arm. “Young man,” he insisted, though weakly, “Would you be so kind...” He was faltering. His cataracted blue eyes closed slowly, then managed, laboriously, to open again. He looked up at Nathan’s expectant face. “...currency stabilization...on the gold standard...perils...bloody monetary experiments...reverse...a calamity...Here, my boy, take this, please.” The old man proffered a small notebook, which Nathan, puzzled, and attempting to support the fellow’s faltering constitution, managed to accept with his left hand. Then the old fellow collapsed. “Doctor! A doctor!” yelled Nathan, frantically. A thread of drool dripped from the old man’s open mouth as Nathan struggled to lay his limp body down gently on the sidewalk. At the nearby corner on Haymarket, the lights changed, and traffic commenced.

Nathan and Philip, speechless, knelt beside the stricken man, whose portly, suited body now lay motionless on the sidewalk. His eyes stared blankly upward into the morning mist. A crowd of people stood and stared. Smoke

First Ezekiel

Now it came about in the thirtieth year, on the fifth day of the fourth month, while I was by the river Chebar among the exiles, the heavens were opened and I saw visions of God. On the fifth of the month in the fifth year of King Jehoicachin’s exile, the word of the Lord came expressly to mEzekiel the priest, in the land of the Chaldeans by the river Chebar and there the hand of the LLord upon Ezekiel. As I looked, hehold, a storm wind was coming from the north, a great cloud with fire flashing forth continually and a bright light around it, and in the midst something like glowing metal in the midst of the fire. Within it there were figures reembling four living beings. And this was their appearanc: they had human form. Each of them had had human four faces and four wings. Their legs were straight and their feet were like a calf’s hoof, and they gleamed like burnished bronze. Under their wings on their four sides were human hands. ATheir wings on four sides were human hands. Their wings touched one another; their faces did not turn when they moved; each went straight forward. Each had a face of a man; all four had the face of a lion on the right and the face of a bull on the left; and all four had the face of an eagle. Their wings were spread out above; each had two touching another being, and two covering their bodies. And each went straight forward; wherever the spirit was about to go, without turning as they went. In the midst of the living beings there was somethingthat looked like burning coals of fire, like torches darting back and forth among the living beings. The fire was bright and lightning was from the fire. And the living beings ran to and from like bolts of lightning. Now as I looked at the the living beings, behold, there was one wheel on the earth beside the living beings, for each of the four of them.

The appearance of the wheels and their workmanship was like sparkling beryl, and all four of them had the same form, their appearance and workmanship being as if one wheel were within another. Whenever they moved, they moved in any of their four directions without turning as they moved. Their rims were lofty and awesome, with all four having eyes round about. Whenever they moved, the wheels moved with them. And whenever the living beings rose from the earth, the wheels rose also. Whenever the spirit was about to go, they would go in that direction. And the wheels rose close beside them; for the spirit of the living beings was in the wheels. Whenever those went, these; and whenever those rose from the earth, the wheels rose close beside them; for the spirit of the living beings was in the wheels. Now over the heads of the living beings there was something like an expanse, like the awesome gleam of crystal, spread out over their heads. Under their expanse their wings were stretched out straight, one toward the other; each one also had two wings covering its body on the one side and on the other. I also heard the sound of their wings like the sound of abundant waters. Smoke. .