FROM SAVANNA IDYLL<\/p>\n
Sometimes my youth returns.
\nThe maypole sprouts its girls.
\nAtoms explode in my heart.
\nThen I realize
\nthis old city isn\u2019t old.
\nIt has no gift for dying.
\nI think,
\nlike everything eternal,
\nit was never meant to go away.
\nIt had a hard birth.
\nIt faced the corruption of Sherman.
\nIts boys died in the fields
\nwith Yankee boys,
\nand the Lord cried for all of them.<\/p>\n
Savannah was spared the torch,
\nlike a life that says
\nI will live every last moment of myself.
\nAnd people knew it.
\nThe people from the north
\ngrow quiet here.
\nTheir faces get young.
\nHardness goes away and
\nthey look at the moss and smile.<\/p>\n
They\u2019ve never seen anything prettier
\nthan our girls.
\nHeard English said
\nlike it should be said.
\nWatch gardens taking time
\nto put color in their flowers,
\nand I\u2019m sure
\nthey take back part of us,
\na piece of the south.<\/p>\n
A little more courtesy
\ntoward one another.
\nWalking more quietly
\nso the birds don\u2019t fly away.
\nThen to know
\nit\u2019s normal to be smart.
\nTo feel like a boy or girl.
\nAnd maybe
\nwhat should have been,
\na world decent in its treatment of others,
\nstarts with the day,
\nand goes to bed
\nlike a child at peace<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
FROM SAVANNA IDYLL Sometimes my youth returns. The maypole sprouts its girls. Atoms explode in my heart. Then I realize this old city isn\u2019t old.…<\/p>\n