Montgomery, Alabama_______________________________________
The early places, the first places
seep into the skin and mind and heart
like humidity into a salt box
until the salt cannot be dried nor the water extracted
and both remain, for better or worse,
in a bonded clump.
Rules and tradition form a tangle that mixes
with overgrown vegetation, oppressive heat,
and knotted at the center of the muddle is the most
peculiar of the Southern flora,
the family tree.
Branch after branch
(some bearing no resemblance whatsoever to any other)
drops down like Banyan roots
disparate and inescapable.
Years later,
when the tangle is unknotted,
a breeze blows through the opened spaces
sending words and memory
like delicate sticks and leaves
scittering across the page…
No comments:
Post a Comment