Whisper Natchez, Call Chickasaw
The grass must bend and roll,
near the cat-tails that bow
to the rippling water of the heart,
the providence of the soul.
Southwest Mississippi, near the border of Louisiana
The old man's beard, Spanish moss does not grow
But exists, breathing life into the forms surrounding,
Taller than time itself.
That imperial and solemn language of the dead
resonates in the the silent blooms stacked on hills
beneath the great sun. Let down your tresses,
sweet tender-footed ancestry.
When we say yours is lost to time,
what we really mean is that we are lost in our own time.
Unlike you, we have forgotten to remember
we must forget time if we are to live.
