The Canebrake

I looked into the canebrake, through the dense green stalks. Then I stepped inside. What did I see? A world now gone.


Thick green stalks, leafy, towering above a man. A glimpse of a log stockade wall. Darkness on a sunny day. I stood in a world known to my ancestors, but foreign to our century.


A path had led me in. I was not following the tracks of game, as deer and bear wander there no more. No Indian lay in wait inside to ambush me. The brake was silent, lifeless. The cane is thriving in that little spot, dark green and tall. It is a living museum. But then again, like any museum, it is dead. People go there to see it because it is no longer a part of their daily lives.


For a moment, one feels the past. A longrifle could be in one’s hand, a bird’s melody in the air, and the faint ring of an axe in the distance. Could be, but is not.


Cane, a type of bamboo, once filled parts of Kentucky, and down into Tennessee, and spilled north across the waters of the Ohio. It was the fodder of the buffalo, self-perpetuating. But when the settlers arrived they must have fields. Time, overgrazing, and the plow laid low the canebrake.


And what does Kentucky river cane mean to an industrial society? Nothing. But it means something to me. And also to a few others, who replanted this little patch, that the youth may see.


In the canebrake I see the footsteps of my ancestors. I hear the painter cry, the bear grunt, and I glance behind me to see if a Shawnee is stealthy following me. The simplicity of existence surrounds me, no machines or noise or artificial stress. The stalks above me intertwine and shut out the sky so that no aircraft can be seen above. I am one with the environment of my creator, as were my distant kin.


I think of my kin, Bantas and Shivelys, who arrived in Kentucky in early 1780. I recall their Westerfield cousins, ambushed by Indians, some butchered, the girls carried north to Detroit to be sold to the British.


I see the toil of building cabins by hand, trees felled and hewed in the summer heat. A plow ran through root bound earth. A deer lower its head to drink from a clear creek, then tumble to the earth from one perfect shot. A winter so cold the game died and the sap in maples froze, caused the trees to burst. Fresh baked cornbread and butter churned by hand. Family and neighbors gathered around a fire, fellowship, real community.


​But then I walk on. I see the opening and emerge. The world is there, as I left it. People mill about. In the distance a car courses down West Lexington street. The clock once again matters. The world of our ancestors is gone. But the past cannot be erased if it lives on in our hearts.

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This essay was originally published as the 3rd essay in Putnam’s recent book A Familiar Field. It contains essays on history, agrarianism, and sociology. If you enjoyed this essay please check out A Familiar Field on Amazon.