a Southern piedmont stream run clear
from the misty heights of the Cherokee
through woodlands of Muskogee Creek.
In dreams I hear the hymn of rills
that whisper from the ancient glades.
I wander with Bartram through shadowy vales
and breathe again their sweet perfumes.
The hills are robed in Delphinium blues
and white wavy mantles of mock orange shrubs.
There on the banks of a hidden brook
where vapors condense into crystalline drips
we savor the fragrance of sweetshrub flowers
framed by the flaming azaleas of May.
When I wake, his world has gone
from forest paths to asphalt streets
where English ivy creeps from lawns
to strangle tame suburban trees.
Now Chinese privet crowds the sills
of silted rivers, clay-stained creeks,
and kudzu casts a tangled shroud
across the red, eroded hills.
You needn’t wonder what he’d think if he
could only see. Beloved, what should we?
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