SAVANNA IDYL
I wonder how things come to be sometimes.
I think I live in my heart too much.
I’ve got too many doors and windows in me.
Like an actor who can’t find himself.
My wife used to ask me,
who are you now?
How’d you come that way?
And I admit, it’s like asking a child,
who are you playing with?
Who are you talking to?
And I say,
I don’t know,
and then keep still.
I suppose it’s because everything
has a story.
Gets made up.
The way a house is put.
Whose romancing who.
When I go to Bonaventure Cemetery
I get confused sometimes,
because I hear a clamor.
Everybody talking at once,
pretending to be somebody.
And I calm myself
and walk with them.
They’re not dust,
just dead,
and wanting to belong to somebody.
It’s where we belong that saves us.
Gives us a place to be.
Like traveling to Europe
and still being in Savannah.
Like knowing what happens there
happens here.
Everything’s history,
ourselves included.
Like being a city inside yourself.
Nothing ever dies.
Everything’s busy barking and talking
all the time,
being somebody,
or pretending to be somebody