A Love Letter to the South

The red clay called me first,
a land literally more colorful than my own
Hot and muggy
Drinking more than breathing
with glasses and video cameras fogged
and no see ‘ums swirling all around.
It was Spanish moss and sweet tea
cold and clear and perfect
with the stretched syllables and collapsed words.
It was young love, naive love, true love.
Love worth running away from home.
And so I ran, into the arms of magnolia and honeysuckle
vinegar barbecue and cole slaw and hush puppies.
And my new love’s words became my words
And her songs became my songs
because mandolin and banjo and fiddle and stomping feet
they were home.
“When you know you know” they said
And I knew.
And because there was first love there was first heartbreak.
And a second.
And a third.
But none from her, not my true love.
There was wandering, from tobacco fields to cotton fields
From Beale to Broadway
But always home.
Home in the worn oaken pews
with the mandolin and the banjo and the fiddle and the stomping feet
in the river that rocked us even after it betrayed us
in the creaky folding chairs with the voices that said,
“Stop. Breathe. There is grace here,
And coffee and laughter and life
and the mandolin and the banjo and the fiddle.
And sometimes an accordion.”
So I stopped and I took a breath, a drink
of magnolia and honeysuckle
of barbecue and baking biscuits
and the thunderstorm you smell before you see.
I tasted the stretched syllables and the collapsed words on my tongue
and felt the hot heavy air curl in around me.
And then I told my love that I had to go.
She cried tears of honey for the biscuits
and sprouted treefuls of magnolias to tempt me
but still I had to go.
And so I go, with my stretched syllables and collapsed words,
with the mandolin and the banjo and the fiddle,
to find a new home, a new love,
And maybe, just maybe, a cold, tall glass of sweet tea.