A Farewell to Southern Melody

The day will come when I will

Share once more the quilts

And pillows I am storing

Away. Once more I will shyly

Let you undress me and gently

Unlock my sealed jewel.

I can never describe the 

Ten thousand beautiful sensual

Ways we will make love.

Huang O, translated by Kenneth Rexroth

~~~ 

My South: On the Porch

There used to be a way the sunlight caught

The cocoons of caterpillars in the pecans.

A boy's shadow would lengthen to a man's

Across the yard then, slowly. And if you thought

Some sleepy god had dreamed it all up—well,

There was my grandfather, Lincoln-tall and solemn,

Tapping his pipe out on a white-flaked column,

Carefully, carefully, as though it were his job.

 And we would watch the pip-stars as they fell.

As for the quiet, the same train always broke it.

Then the great silver watch rose from his pocket

For us to check the hour, the dark fob

Dangling the watch between us like the moon.

It would be evening soon then, very soon.

Donald Justice

~~~

sunflowers

after a long winter

the earth is warm and dry

we sit, the two of us

best friends, kids 

in the park

leaning against

the trunk of an old tree

faces to the sun.

in the distance

we hear the sound 

of a baseball slapping a mitt

and the indistinct voices 

of a man and a boy

my fingertips comb

the new grass.