I think past the dream, think dream of passing fledglings,

            think future, the balcony in the dream with a view of history like a morning-soaked field

                        sprawled

                        and the row crop

                        and bales of hay and swollen ropes

                        and birds eloping

                                    below clouds, above the crop, across the county line—

 

I think pine trees with their bloated cones; the cones and their needles;

            the summers with bloated cones and needles

            and hay bales

            with children leaping

            in a game of tag

                        and the pine trees; white hickories; burly oak and the last steps

                                    circling the base before a felling.

 

Burly oak; the felling; row of magnolia and ropes wrapped on lower limbs, the lower limbs

            and crescent flowers

            above slick leaves in rain, slick leaves, white flowers

            like a lost thought;

            oblivion;

                        a thought lost below the lower limbs; climbing limbs; magnolias in a row

                                    and petals like oblivion.

                  

I think the railroad crossing; I think tracks; I think the past and Irwinville,

            the drive south with my sister

            eating peanuts

            flicking shells; I think cottage house and the dried well

                        alongside the interstate

                        and the past, think past and my dream; the past is not a dream

                                    even if I wake some days shaking in it.

 

I track the conifer, conifer along the interstate, track interstate and gloss

            of autumn, track the last

                        time that autumn tracked for me;

                        the interstate;

                        conifers and their branches and birds, the needles,

                        their fine gloss;

                                    the birds and their gloss, tracks and the fieldtrips to Dahlonega.

 

Conifers in Dahlonega; cotton tracts outside Valdosta; the cottage house;

            I think felling;

            I think my grandparents’ neighbor who was scared of Atlanta

            flicking peanut shells

            over the tractor’s tire well;

                        passing fledglings and the felling and cotton tracts

                                    and tobacco staining the dirt.

 

The cross in Cordele; the noose outside Tifton; scummy pond I swam in and the beavers

            damming runoff all summer;

            I think tracts and summer and beavers swimming through

            a Tifton pond;

            I think election night and bowls of salted popcorn;

                        lines around the courthouse;

                        tracts and Cordele and my toes testing the water between patches of pond scum.

 

Pond scum stuck in a tire well; Irwinville; I think Sunday school and a leatherbound bible;

            think dream of the balcony;

            bible’s gloss and spackled walls, white fissured ceiling tile;

                        think sermons;

                        think ties;

                                    leatherbound bible and light

                                    stuck in the pages’ gloss.

 

Oblivion; I think sermons; history unlike a dream; think history class and Mrs. X

            in a red sweater;

            think future, sticky tack on the back of a conversion desk;

                        think history class; think white fissured ceiling tile; myth;

                                    Jesus on the holy cross;

                                                I think the tunnel and cross, last steps before a felling;

                                                            split vision; Jesus; billow of white rope in a tunnel.

 

A billow of rope in a tunnel; Atlanta; think the warehouse with barbed wire fence just north

            of Sylvan Hills

            and the dog yipping at the fence between geraniums;

            thick red and oblivious

                        and hills in the distance

                        with familiar trees; burly oak; crescent blossoms vanishing, budding

                                    towards oblivion.

 

I think ambulance siren; think steps in front of the emergency room; think ambulance

            as luxury;

            think crowd of people with wristwatches;

            checking wristwatches,

                        watching the hospital set in purple dusk; think holy cross;

                                    park benches with deterrent rails; alcove with aluminum spikes; think spikes;

                                                the holy cross; fieldtrips to Dahlonega.

 

Atlanta; pile of newspapers with the corners flicking in a breeze; track the breeze; track

            the neighborhood changing

            and lawyers with black briefcases

                        and displaced faces eating buttered corn on the sidewalk

                                    and my grandparents’ neighbor who was scared of Atlanta; track scared

                                    of Atlanta; hates the people in Atlanta; think neighbors in Atlanta

                                                sprawled against the whole of human need.

 

Tuesday morning. I wake on the balcony from a dream like an open field; history

            is not a dream;

            I think

            history; think black briefcases and the faces scrawled on oblivion;

            the whole of human need; oblivion;

            burly oak; white hickories;

                         a match in a cupped hand against the wind; steam off a cup of coffee.

 

 Think coffee; think awning; think yawning on the balcony and three eggs in a crow’s nest;

            think history

            like a bandage buried in the sand

                         and a hawk’s wide turn above the riverbank

                         and glossy leaves;

                                    October unlike a dream;

                                                pale sky, a thundercloud verging oblivion.