The Move South

THE MOVE SOUTH

“No trip is too strange to satirize, friend,
Nor realtor, so smooth to care about”.
That´s what he said, our cryptic bus driver
And his toothless comedienne wife after that church service
On Sunday, when the kisses blew from the swinging fans
And the air was heavy with more secular hopes.
The move went well, it seems.

Dark circles rimmed my eyes, then,
A new stranger to this land of crack, morphine Jesus,
And a gnawing sense of Jonah being swallowed
After a long drive, after an off the cuff decision.
I stepped into the sun that first morning dazed, lost in thought
And later, almost hit the paper boy in my truck,
Who cursed like a sailor as he rode away that fateful morning.

Death is easy. Reality is hard. (I know nothing about comedy.)

The metaphysics of place are an unreadable Bible
Tucked under some fuchsia or broad mango grove
During the summer months when
Sweat and sin are the lotions we lather with wishfully
While snakes slither under crackling leaves.

But there is something here, for sure.
A crass feeling of wakefulness, aligned with
The crush of knowledge, a Homer-ized “Doh!” when contemplating
The past which has never left, a meaningless present, and
A future too dimly lit to see, too bright to ignore.
Home is where a heart is, and the jury is out today
Contemplating mine, over lunch at the corner café.
With grits.