Toking at the dam around twelve
Listening for rod tip bells
Muds slapping topwater , the hollow ring
of paddle striking boat , a bowed rod , a midnight
fight on a starlit warm Rico night
Connecting the heavens with wondering eyes
Tobacco smoke rising high into the sky
A jigger of peach brandy warmth
A chicken sandwich from the One Stop* ..

Airborne life circling , the pan flutes of thick
cover , gully and granite precipice awash in song
Magenta dusk towers the white pine treetops , crows
portend the birth of the moon , herons wallow in
six o'clock shadows , river dancers cross the mirrored
narrows  
Dove ballads echo for miles , gulf breezes crackle parched
canopies , a piedmont landscape offering me hope , reason
and sanity* ..

I dwell inside the coppered forest confusion
Among straight evergreens pining for blue windows ,
in the illusion of being the only man on earth , in the
union of sycamore and birch ..
May contrails be arrows shot from appeased gods ,
may cirrus clouds take the shape of horses in battle from
the very stables of Olympus
The chatter of the raven and melancholy dove , mercurial
raptors announcing their presence from high above
Accept a brother shunned , a native son bridled in despair
Wearing battles upon both arms , seething in emotive turmoil
Bearing tokens of love for every fish , mammal and serpent
The warmth of July in Chinook winter winds , the crisp air
of Autumn for the dog days of August , a crown of azaleas
with Cherokee roses in the Appalachian snowfall amidst the Indian forest  
May flocks of pelicans continually grace her windswept , turquoise shores
May the voices of bobwhite quail address her plains forevermore* ...

Cry o'er this sadness
Refreshing red clay in the guise of granite
With pools of wrigglers , black tadpoles ,
water striders , afternoon of titmouse , bluebird and robin
Of lacewings and locust culled neath
the bounty of spring , lantern fly , mantid ,
field gnats riding turbulent April waves
O'er tin shack , pole barn and smokehouse
Barbecue pit , wood shed and well house
Hour of depression abated , of fragrant treasure
ablated* ...

A patch of earth in Kelleytown
Black from years of tending
It tested firm in my clutched hand
every Spring
It filled my boots at times , clung
to my tractor and ended up in my
pockets
It crusted ever so lightly , holding
precious water
It helped to fill the stores of Papa ,
Granmaw and my father
A true friend , a loyal companion ,
a southern crescent miracle , soil harrowed
in perfect rows , life bearing piedmont , fragrant loam*..

Stars fell upon the newborn world as hardwood behemoths arose to shed the colors of winter , under swaying motifs the cackle of morning crows grew from the center , her trestle -work cried frozen and archaic , forever unknown
She flourished beside the rails and died
And to her residents a crown of case hardened iron , tooled with misery and dubious history* ....

Hot sassafras tea and shortbreads
Served by weathered , loving hands
Beagles introducing the postman
Water Oaks shedding their color
Dirt roads went on forever* ...

Love is a beautiful scene
She is each descriptive glance
Rainbows connecting mountains
Awe inspiring waterfalls
Clear fountains , the birth of Spring
in the month of May , the embattled flowers
of the Fall , purple wire grass shimmering
o'er Hill Country smoky malls
The flavor of salt , fescue and gardenia
Afternoons along Pink Dogwood , bristling
Magnolia hallways
From wooden porches as shadows grow tall with
the music of Angus cattle in the orange , growing
nightfall* ...

Crows have gathered in a brown field
sprinkled with frosted glitter
Sunshine wanes and flickers with
burst of artistic vigor
Woodland song , bluejay gay revelry along pinewood rows  
Water oaks crowned with mistletoe
Christmas Day adorned with the blessings of home* ...

Leaves crunch beneath our postman's feet
Fussy songbirds slowly advance up Wilkerson
Street
The familiar and the new , cedar greens and
beautiful sky of blue
Majestic pecan , centurion oaks
Hopscotch squares chalked on a lazy road
Where people still blow car horns and wave
Where church bells and courthouse clocks
measure the day* ..

Do you see the caricatures neath the full moon pines
The ghost of General McIntosh , spirits of Creek hunters along
the river brush
Old Timers whittling song flutes from bottom cane
Farrier's shoeing mules , work horses straining at the
crack of the whip , ferryboats treading shoals across the
foggy Flint
The voices of children in one room schoolhouses
The rousing , morning bell of little towns , the clap
of field wagons
A fiddler sawing a piedmont 'Rag'
The rustle of picking field peas with Croaker bags

Aspiration abounds in the silvered , drizzly days of December
With mournful dove that find banquet within my yard , below leaf barren Cottonwoods standing proud as if on guard
For every grain of sand secure in life's spiral purpose
For the communities that teem on the rain plashed surface

Sometimes I smell your hair
and pretend to lay my
chest against you

like on those nights after
building  a pine  fence
around the yard

of  a Baptist preacher’s
house in Georgia
forty miles

from cold beer and café pie,
and then I remember that
was 20 years ago

before you and me
drove different
highways.