Alabama
--for my birthplace
by Steve Crow
-
Cleveland city lights pass
under the port-side wing
thirty-five thousand feet
below, me reflected in the dark
plexiglass window of an Eastern
airliner headed northwest
into Detroit. Birmingham
and her people were kind, gentle
and generous with me. I felt
something about old friends
and other times as we met,
talked, walked for hours
beneath sacred Red Mountain,
the statue of Vulcan I climbed
as a child pointing into the sky
among the tall leafless trees
of two, warm, winter southern
days. I could feel the goodness
of the old South in her people
and their voices, a music I
loved hearing, drawling me back
to the days I knew as a child.
I loved walking on the beautiful
red Earth and offered pollen
for the two white stones
I took home with me. I wanted
to paint my face in Alabama
red clay. I wanted to spread
the Earth over me, breathe it
through my skin, bathe in it
like a cleansing, blessing, flesh
of the soil of the Old People.
I heard bluejays calling nearby,
somewhere over there through
the trees and a joy came to me
for their voices. I couldn't
live without them, the trees
or people. I sat under one
evening sunset, yellow light
settling into blue while the sky
curved closer to the Earth.
and is funded through a St. Cloud State University
(St. Cloud, Minnesota) Cultural Diversity Committee allocation.
Contributors retain all rights to their work.
 |
Last update: 10 May 2000
URL: http://leo.stcloudstate.edu/kaleidoscope/volume2/alabama.html