All That Glitters

In the early evening just after the sun has slipped below the tops of the cypress trees in the western bayou, I sit in Grandmere Catherine's old oak rocker with Pearl in my arms and hum an old Cajun melody, one that Grandmere Catherine used to hum to me when she put me to sleep, even when I was already a little girl with pigtails bouncing over my shoulders as I ran across the fields from the banks of the swamp to our toothpick-legged shack.