Belle’s bayou was once filled with love. A slow churning, burning love that hummed and echoed like nectar bees in a tunnel of sunflowers bent under the warm, summer sky.

It was a hot love, a sticky love like mama Maybelle’s crème pops, once they had been set out too long. An infectious love that always kept me coming back. I was sixteen then, young with big eyes and a small mouth. My mama used to call me a soft spoken girl because I always kept to myself and only said half of what I really meant to.

I used to wake up with the sun and birds, greeting them as they perched outside my bedrooms window. I’d comb my tangled curls into a long braid, throw a dress over my head and be on my way to meet the bayou. I can still see my mama’s head shaking in disapproval at my skinny body twisting around trees, barefooted in the mud heading down, deeper into the evergreen wilderness. I went early and alone, with a sunhat for shade and a bag of mangos for eating.

My first stop was always near a cluster of old cypress trees were herons and owls perched, looking down at me, pondering my being there. I called them the jury because they were always so serious. I liked sitting with them, listening to the different stories from  the others around us; each in its own unique tune. Birds chirping, the howls of wind, the croaks and ribbits from frogs alike.

One particular day the leaves had spoken, interrupting us all. Until I realized that the leaves didn’t speak before the wind and now I was curious about its impertinence to the melody.

I lifted from the bed of flowers I had been lying in to see for myself.

This is when I saw him. He was a tall, skinny boy with eyes big like my own, with large hands, a wide nose and feet twice the size of mine. I figured his feet had crunched the leaves so loud causing them to scream from under his big, dark boots.

“Hello.” He said waving a smile.

“Who are you?” I asked tartly. “What are you doing in here?”

I had no interested in subtleties, by now the herons had flown away and the owls were hidden amidst the trees.

“In… not out?” He smiled, full of confusion and charm.

I rolled my eyes as I stood up, wriggling out my dress. “Doesn’t matter now, everyone’s gone. You’re too loud. You’re a visitor here, you know. You’re supposed to come quietly and let them do the talking.” I stretched my arms out to the trees, emphasizing the them I was talking about.

He caught my eye and looked at me peculiarly.

“You talk about these trees and animals as if they’re people.” He replied.

I rested my hands on my hips. “And you walk into this swamp with your loud boots, making all that noise as if you own this place… and you don’t.”

My words had taken him back quite a bit and he could hear in my tone that I was in no mood to be pleasant.

“You’re right.” He sighed.

“I am very sorry for disturbing you all, Miss….” He removed his hat and waited for me to fill in the blanks.

“Leila.” I breathed, walking away briskly.

“Please to meet you Leila, I’m Torin.” He gushed.

“You really seem to know your way around here. Mind if I tag along… paint a few pictures for my art portfolio?”

“You’re an artist?”

“Not yet. There for my application into art school.”

I glared back at him. “I’m afraid there won’t be much to paint with those.” I pointed down at his dark boots covered in mud. “There sending everything within a 10 mile radius away.”

Torin looked down at his boots, grimacing.

“What’s the matter?” I sneered. “Afraid of a little mud?” My voice was daring and he accepted. Torin untied his shoes and swung them over his shoulders, walking quietly behind me.  

Before long we had acquired a routine, Torin and I.

He would bring me fresh fruit from his father’s garden and meet me in the court of trees. We would take turns leading the way into the bayou, stopping occasionally for him to paints ducks, beavers, snapping turtles and sandpipers. Each day I showed him more of the bayou; It’s animals, trees and sounds, and he would paint. Paint it all. Some days I would find him painting me laying in the grass with flowers and sticks in my hair. Then there were days he wouldn’t paint at all. Instead he would come to lay with me and there too would be sticks in his coils. Those days were my favorite. Days hidden amidst the scatter of leaves with beads of sweat trickling down and around our bodies as we laid, listening to the music of wilderness. Days when my soft giggles and hum carried in the wind from his hands painting on me. We would walk back hand in hand, smiling at our own secrets.

Weeks later, Torin had received a letter from an art school in New York. They had liked his paintings and wanted him to come for the Fall semester.

After that day things were never quite the same.

I had become obsessed with showing him more of the bayou. Animals he hadn’t painted, sounds he had never heard before, anything to keep him longer. Anything to keep him coming back, but Torin was no longer interested. He no longer wanted to spend time in the bayou, laying under the warm sun. Instead he looked for ways to keep us away from the bayou all day. He took me dancing, out to eat at tables with shoes and to the movies. A few times, he had asked me to come with him to New York and to leave the bayou for good.

That was six years ago when my eyes were too big and my mouth so small.

Now as a woman, I think of my younger self a lot these days. I am fortunate to have a good memory and a beautiful reminder in Lorina Belle. Like myself, Belle wakes up with the sun and birds excited to listen to the different songs from the bayou. She is drawn to it, captivated by its freedom. Most days, I wonder if she too knows its secrets and other days I keep little Belle home and I teach her to sing.

© Joneisha Taylor