The cemetery was my circus I found
After outgrowing fantasy and the playground.
Golden afternoons in the country after school,
My blood having no resemblance, no ancestors,
To all the Sutton's and Smotherman's and Suddeth's
Who here resided with Tennessee pride. Inside and outside.
The still silence of my childhood cemetery carried an eerie air. I wanted to be here.
The peaceful calm, it called me back,
The king cawing crow, attending in black.
As for any of the lost, perhaps content, Confederate souls,
Who have yet to cross over, lamenting or dozed.
I suspect now, that it was I who startled those ghosts.
My blood, my frequency, my scent of the coast,
Sent from a Union ancestry my vibration still boasts...
How unexpected was I to those Tennessee ghosts.
abp
