A Dream on Reading Bartram

Sometimes I shut my eyes and see 

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?

A Humble Petition

Give me winter, for instance, 

when the chilling wind finally stills 

and frosty nights grip the hills of Georgia. 

Set me on a rustic path 

that winds beyond abandoned barns 

through broomsedge fields of tan and amber 

walking with my once-young family 

trailing happy farmhouse dogs 

to picnic on the distant ridge 

of weathered granite strewn with boulders, 

lichens, moss, and soft grass beds 

in the scent of a hidden cedar glade. 

Then ease me into early spring 

when bloodroot bloom by woodland streams 

and toads sing love from lowland swamps, 

or the day before the canopy closes 

when nature paints an Impressionist scene 

in tender greens and textures of red. 

Put me on a front porch swing 

where a ceiling fan slowly stirs 

another lush midsummer evening 

soaking my bones in moist heat 

and watching children chase fireflies 

as twilight sinks into night. 

Grant again a golden fall – the grace 

of richness tinged with a pensive mood 

when crickets turn a plaintive tune 

and a choir of blackbirds sings adieux. 

As hickories fling their dried-up leaves – 

the faith to fly with the freshening breeze. 

And when my seasons end at last 

as seasons will, I only ask a year’s reprieve 

to taste of life again, again. 

Bloodroot, Memorial Park. Image by Don Hunter

Bloodroot, Memorial Park. Image by Don Hunter