DIXIE

The memory haunts me now...

riding north out of Memphis
in the back seat of a ‘50s Pontiac,
windows down on the way to my
grandfather's farm. I can still see
the tenant farmers bent
at the waist in their forty acre
allotments of cotton; a man in overalls
his wife in a faded dress and bonnet,
and the sons and daughters, too.

Their dirt yards were strewn with

tatterdemalion little ones,
rotting furniture, farm tools
and maybe a beat-up car.
Those white-eyed babies on their
front porches waved as we went by,
each ramshackle shack
about a quarter-mile apart.

Sometimes dad’d pull into the gravel

in front of a little country store owned

by the white man they worked for.

We’d unload and push our way through

the “Colonial is Good Bread” screen door,

laugh and tussle the way kids do to buy

ourselves a Moon Pie, and a NuGrape
fished elbow deep from cold water
in a red metal cooler.

Back on the road, we’d wave

our purple prizes when we sped

past the rag-dolls and their big

white eyes as they reached out to us
with their brown hands.

Reviews

[Lorry]

Seems a world away these days, but a very visual reminder of a much simpler time. When moon pies and nugrape were all a kid could think of and receiving would have made it a time to be fondly remembered.
I must go now Vol, to look in to local moon pie stockists. Ive read about them in your work and in Samuel dickens' takes and having never had one, I can confirm that the not knowing is torture indeed! 😊

[Vol]

Hahaha...
Lorry... They are an okay snack...two thin, round cookies about four inches across with marshmallow between and the whole thing coated with chocolate. As a kid, they were especially attractive because they were so much bigger than a candy bar for the same cost.
Vol

[Lorry]

It's not fair! We get all the usual American stuff here, but not the good stuff. I WANT A MOON PIE! 😊
They should keep their neon breakfast lucky charms and start sending us moon pies instead. 😊

[Kelly Scheppers]

If the memory haunts you to this day, after reading this, it is understanding why. What a Rembrandt this would be, if painted. I am mesmerized by your proficiency to tell a story. A man of exceptional ability, you are!

[Vol]

Oh, my Kelly!
I want to say,"yeah, I'm all that and a bag of chips," but modesty forbids. Ha! thank you, Milady for such kind words! It runs like a movie in my head, complete with the hot wind and humidity, and the smell of fresh turned dirt, fields lined with forests, bridges over small, dark rivers and incredibly oppressed black population. Racism was as deep and terrible in Boston and New York as in the south.