What’s Left of the Plantation
The Southern aristocrats, once their money
finally ran out, seeped into the middle classes,
still with a genetic memory of glory days
of brandy of linen napkins; but their children
became indistinguishable from the humble
brethren they’d joined.
I can smell the good whisky in those darkened
rooms, darkened from night, darkened from the road
that led to here. And outside, the choirs of dead slaves
harmonies like parts of a whole sing across
these rolling pastures. It’s quiet tonight but for them
and their scars.
My birddogs worship me, but I’ve not earned it.
I bought it in the breeding. So even though the
world is cooling (everybody knows that now) my foliage
of magnolia oak poplar maple cedar flourish
in freedom and lack of attention. And there are
barely even traces of the Big House that survive.
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Poet, composer of music (Max Able / Abel, Rawls & Hayes), lawyer and spoken-word performer (Scapeweavel), L. Ward Abel lives in rural Georgia, and has been or will be published at The Reader (UK), The Yale Anglers’ Journal, Versal, The Pedestal, Pale House, Kritya, OpenWide, and many others. Abel has recently been nominated for “Best of the Web” by Dead Mule. He is the author of Peach Box and Verge (Little Poem Press, 2003), Jonesing For Byzantium (UK Authors Press, 2006) and the recently released The Heat of Blooming (Pudding House Press, 2008).