Magnolia Memories

Streets are barren.  Humid June
air hangs heavy along the avenue.
Only the grackles move, flitting from
branch to branch in a majestic old
southern oak.  Morning is not far
away.

Swollen gray clouds, promising to
gift the town with nourishing rain,
take shape in the first light of day.
Magnolia leaves dance in a gentle
west wind.  The quiet is surprisingly
loud.  Street lamps begin to dim
as first light breaks over the mountain.

A leafy archway spans the avenue where
graceful oaks reach across, strong arms
entwining to create a shadowed tunnel.
Wide sidewalks lead to stately white-
columned homes standing in elegant
ease, lavish in southern heritage and style.

Grand magnolias, history's observers
of human pain and pride, are dressed
in fragrant ivory blossoms.  They stand
side by side, soldiers on guard, in
thick St. Augustine grass, the lush
carpet of respectable southern lawns.

A mockingbird, riding an oak branch
in a distant tree, insists on singing
again and again her version of 
"pretty, pretty, pretty," a song
carried by the breeze like a soft
blanket covering the sleeping 
community.

Efforts to capture the essence of
this droplet of time are difficult. A
canvas can capture only one thin
moment, not the flow of time.
Photographs, precise and powerful,
cannot reproduce the range of
emotions buried deep in the wounds
and wonder of the place.  Words on
a page are elusive and often prone
to misunderstanding.

One must stand in the shadowed 
tunnel, breathe in the fragrance of
history, listen patiently for faint
sounds of musket fire, overhear
magnolia leaves whisper long held
tales of triumphant and terrible 
times, feel the earth tremble from
jarring canon fire and the force of
young men falling to the ground.

Remarkable history is catalogued
in magnolia memories.