Bayou Teche

The tide was in, and Bayou Teche was high and swollen with mud, the surface chained with rain rings.

The Glass Rainbow James Lee Burke 2010

But the center of his life, perhaps his visual testimony to the success his humble birth normally would have denied him, was the restored antebellum home where he lived on a bend in Bayou Teche, just outside Franklin.

The Glass Rainbow James Lee Burke 2010

Across the drawbridge stood a trailer slum that looked like it was transported from Bangladesh and reconstructed on the banks of Bayou Teche.

The Glass Rainbow James Lee Burke 2010

THAT EVENING I hooked my boat trailer to my truck and picked up Clete Purcel at his motor court, and in the sunset drove the two of us up Bayou Teche to Henderson Swamp.

The Glass Rainbow James Lee Burke 2010

While the tape played, I walked to the window and watched the rain dance on the surface of Bayou Teche.

The Glass Rainbow James Lee Burke 2010

A barbecue pit fashioned from a split oil drum leaked smoke into the canopy and drifted out over Bayou Teche.

The Glass Rainbow James Lee Burke 2010

A blue heron was standing in the shallows of Bayou Teche, pecking at its feathers, its legs as thin and delicate as strokes from a bamboo brush.

The Glass Rainbow James Lee Burke 2010

Now, on a Sunday morning in the spring of 2009, I woke from a dream about a dream in a small sugarcane town on Bayou Teche, the slope behind the house white with ground fog, the overhang of the trees dripping on the tin roof.

The Glass Rainbow James Lee Burke 2010

Through my office window, I could see rain tumbling out of the sunlight onto the surface of Bayou Teche.

The Glass Rainbow James Lee Burke 2010

I gazed out my window at Bayou Teche and at the live oak trees in City Park.

The Glass Rainbow James Lee Burke 2010