Old man of the new South,
champion of losers,
poet of prose,
one hundred candles are not enough.

On this date born
before Adam fell,
you saw the serpent
and lived to tell.

You tell it so well
even the ding-**** bell
won’t silence your still-talking
ever-prevailing inexhaustible voice,*

as doom itself is drowned
by the sound of a civilization
gathering round
the only candle worthy of your day:

the sun.