FROM THE SAVANNAH IDYL COLLECTION
I wonder if the little lady
misses Bonaventure Cemetery.
She stood there for forty eight years
holding up her plates,
as if you please,
she had something for you.
And she did.
Sweetness, charm.
She’d be there now
if the movies hadn’t made a story
out of Savannah,
and that murder at Mercer House,
depending on your point of view.
Her picture was on the fly jacket
of the book, “Midnight In The Garden
of Good and Evil”.
As beautiful a title as I ever heard.
Didn’t hurt to be spooky either.
Anyway they took her away
for her own protection,
and put her in the Telfair Museum of Art.
I never went to see her there.
It ain’t where she belongs.
She lived in the cemetery
with the moss and trees,
like a little girl out of Eden.
Folks come from far away
asking where she is.
When they ask me,
I tell them she’s in the cemetery.
And I apologize.
Don’t take long I guess
to know she’s not there.
But if they do find her,
they know where she’s coming from,
and that makes it all right.
I loved that little lady.
I always said hello
and felt her welcoming me.
Maybe sometime
she’ll be back,
pretty as an angel,
and I’ll say hello,
and thank you for the smile
she puts on my face.