Rosemary Dunn Moeller

Rosemary Dunn Moeller

In the Shadow of the Church in Manou, La Perche,

“All Things That Rise Must Converge” –Pierre Teilard de Chardin, S.J.

Genealogy takes me on travels, family traced back to Louis Houle, an indentured servant, emigrant to Quebec 1647, once of Manou.

I had to go and search, I needed to find tendrils to streets along the River Eure, fields where wheat grew, now horse trails for Percherons. Looking at farmland, goats, calves, I found the usual: a small rural village post office, city hall, church. My owned-indentured-seventeenth century ancestors, Louis’ parents, having seen their son off to the New World, death-like, might have been ordered on errands, never free to sell themselves for passage, too old, infirm, attached to the village and the farm where they labored. I make up stories, excuses, causes for their staying rooted. I’m glad for connected bits of DNA from Louis who climbed on board as neither Pioneer nor Founder, just an emigrant, then onto land to work off passage. He labored, bought farmland, returned to Manou to take a girl-bride, Matilda, multiplying fruitfully, so I can return to smell the sweet grass here, now, wondering how bad it would be to just stay in this lovely place beneath these maples and oaks. Louis left his life behind, not his homeland. I’ve another home. My life expanded.

Rosemary Dunn Moeller

Long Light Summer Skirts

I usually swam alone in the lake on hot afternoons at our camp, not so far out, not terribly deep. I would grow gills if I knew how, but never learned. Nor did I learn to feel disgust from feet sinking in mud or weeds brushing my arms and legs. Friends from town who came to visit were repulsed by littoral smells of dried weeds dead mollusks. I stroked and glanced down to glittering fish, their scales reflecting the direct sunlight, colors changing, flickering. I questioned the hornwort I swam through. Beautiful, fluttery, bright green, gentle stemmed. How deep do you grow? No answer. Once, for attention, with others, I lied that I was caught in the feathery grass just to feel it twist round my knees, as I pulled it loose from the bottom. Fragile hornwort could never be trouble, but I pretended. She believed and “rescued” me. For penance, I did nothing. I still feel the weedy wet strands with pleasure when I wear long light skirts in summer. Pond bottoms feel more dangerous now, clear water holds contaminants. If I could re-wade into waters with my mind of nine summers I would.