2 weeks before Christmas,
full of rainwater
tire tracks zig-zag in brown cotton stubble…
Spooky cypress swamps take over where the tire tracks end.
Sprouting up like old Burma Shave billboards, road-signs of what’s around the bend:
Pops Snowballs
Wanted: Duck Hunting Land
Gizzard Special
Coon’s Car Wash
Abe’s at the Legendary Crossroads/ Get Your T-Shirts Here!!
Cracked Pecans
Delta Donut
& a bumper sticker maybe worth heeding:
Avoid Flying Fertilizer…Don’t Tailgate Tractors…
frosted turnip greens stacked for sale in back of his pick-up,
a farmer in insulated coveralls waits for anyone
to stop.
It’s a Sunday.
The gas station is closed
Late afternoon shadows at Mount Zion’s white, one room Baptist church float silently across Robert Johnson's gravesite.
I'm not alone
nor is the passenger beside me my wife.
We’ve been listening all afternoon to beautiful, slow, delta blues.
the oldest of songs
as old as a young Adam & Eve.