Skip to content

The book The House of the World has been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize and is now available on Amazon.

Rest Awhile

FROM THE “SAVANNAH IDYL” COLLECTION

I rest sometimes.
I’m not old,
I just rest and let the day have itself.
Up north no one stops,
feels the moss,
lets time go by under their fingers.
How does life go on with them?
Whistling past a window.

The South learned its lesson
a long time ago.
When it almost died.
When the dead outnumbered everybody alive.
When it seemed only the children were left
and the town took a nap in the afternoon
to let the mothers grieve.

I suppose then it became a habit to stop,
sit on the stoop,
talk to one another.
Play checkers if it so sufficed,
or just let yourself fill with words,
argue with your Daddy,
remember your Mama,
and watch flowers bloom at your feet.

Something to admire in the afternoon.
To see how the world lives.
How it lets go and becomes pretty.
Gets out of the way.
Lets people go past and say to yourself,
when she was a girl she was a sunflower.
Even on rainy days she shone.
Now she’s a cloud with hair all silver.
I’ll ask her sometime how her brother’s doing,
and maybe
we’ll sit and enjoy Savannah,
like two old tombstones flirting with
each other.

Published inIndex of all Poems