Stilled Photographs: North Carolina
Subtle changes
happened there on the
outside, slow moving through
the hunchbacked farmland
and people
gaunt and lean country
gnarled hands and
tree country
with snatches of joy
whizzing through
laughing and looking backwards.
Eternal cycles of plowing,
planting and harvesting
waiting for rain, waiting
for dryness, ripeness, softness,
daylight, night, market,
money, time, waiting for
Godot.
Mules are the country;
long, bony faces moving
to some slow, inner rhythm
only they know.
Puffs of dirt are the country
rising between bare toes in
early honeysuckle mornings.
Footprints are the country;
crescent prints of animals,
printed tires, and the
toes of children.
Slow, flat heat
rising from the weeds
into the bellies of
angular women with stringy
legs and large knuckles
slow moving eyes that
never quite focus on anything.
Shadows of unshaven men
who sleep in John Deere hats;
baggy pants, earth-made shoes
that walk heavily on the
new-plowed ground
leaning against houses held up
by last year’s poverty and
skinny mongrel dogs.
Small-town houses
huddled together against the
encroaching space, fearful of
being reclaimed, lolling out
asphalt tongues to other
small town brethren, dotted with
Brown’s Grocery, Evan’s Place, Sam’s Diner.
Sweat.
Straddled across poles
racking tobacco,
down ankles chopping peanuts,
off noses pulling sheepburrs,
down hands holding cultivators,
blended with body odor
earth funkiness, flatness of
corn, pungnce of weeds;
the perfume of the country.
Dirt, land, soil,
grime on clothes/faces/hands
rich earth, poor earth,
broomstraw-grown earth,
a dream of connectedness
and ownership.
Vulval red and spread
waiting planting,
germination, the
cycle of life.
Black, rich, and mysterious,
primitive odors swelling
under the heat, in heat.
Rocky, reluctant,
punishing hardness
demanding rough hands
and Job’s patience.
My sweet treasure,
these musty pictures.
A religious connection
that demanded prayer
and tears
and devotion and hope.
A community of believers.
A North Carolina Gothic
Rising from memories
Of stilled photographs.
**
Requiem
So, how do you hide a
red neck inside a white collar
or tell a body that sang
while pitching hay that
being at a desk
in autumn
is really a better thing?
And, how do you hide a
taste for Pabst in a white-wine crowd
or tell your mind that
fishing for new accounts
in spring
will feed your gnawing hunger?
And, how do you hide a
grits and gravy accent
or tell an aching soul that
living in a treeless city
in summer
is the best that you can do?
And, how do you hide a
country boy in wingtip shoes
or tell a longing heart that
along with three new gloves
this winter
you have lost the way back home?
