Alabama – 1 (of 10)

On 2018122920190102 By Beleaguered ServantIn Original PoemsLeave a comment

(Part 1)

History, which is more than famous events,
And places, which are more than what we know of their histories,
Have life. Ancestral and modern, easily accessible and secret,
Life flows in streams and collects in pools
Such that those who wander by
Are free to share.

But seeing is not knowing:
Even more, knowing is not feeling
The reality of a place; that is only granted
To those willing to love long through
All the changing seasons and ways.

And so have I loved Alabama:
Its highways and back roads,
Shores and rivers, hills and forests,
People and places, music and lyrics,
Dreams and aspirations,
Sentences and paragraphs.

A place is not a thing, defined
Primarily by its unity; it is
A Shakespeare Festival and a fried chicken stand,
An ice skating rink and a windsurfer’s shop,
And teenage girl playing soccer and a young man shooting pool.
It is every kind of music sung by every kind of voice,
Some whose ancestors lived here long before yours or mine,
And others who got here ten minutes ago.

And so have I known many of Alabama’s moods
Through seasons and through decades,
Turbulent, complicated, transformative, regenerative;
Following signs, some of them pointing merely to other signs,
Through words and over headlines, out to that long stretch
Where stories get told and lives get lived,
And the traveler gets welcomed in for
A cool drink, and a chance to catch his bearings.

So share I these, now, with you:
As part of what I am, and what I’ve felt.

Opp, Alabama

On 2014120520141205 By Beleaguered ServantIn Original PoemsLeave a comment

New York? Anybody can make it up there!
To prove: Google gave me a list
Of famous New Yorkers so awfully long
The deduction’s hard to resist

That half of the people there go on to fame.
So making it there’s not that great:
But making it somewhere off track and obscure
Now that, I think, carries some weight.

Take Opp, Alabama, for instance. It seems
Nobody well-known is from there:
I’d say, if you’re famous in Rattlesnake-ville
You could make it most anywhere

(…)

Florence Tower

On 2014070720140628 By Beleaguered ServantIn Original Poems1 Comment

I drove one day through Florence
And I saw an ancient tower
Constructed first from stone
By (I assumed) some Tuscan power

Active in fabled days of old
When empire had fallen;
And now, this aging structure left
Shot through with summer Pollen

And rhapsodized on foreign scenes
The matchless panorama:
Then realized that I drove that day
In Florence, Alabama

Highway 29

On 2014052520141028 By Beleaguered ServantIn Original PoemsLeave a comment

He packed his bag this morning
And left before the sun
He wanted to escape it all
He just wanted to run

He set out for a new life
Somewhere down the line
To find the past he’d never had
Out on Highway 29

The dew was on the new grass
And fog was in the air
The sun was hidden by the haze
He didn’t see it there

When he arrived at Brewton
The sun began to shine
He smelled the sweet, free air he found
Out on Highway 29

Do you know
When it’s time to go?
Do you hear
When the road is calling?
Does your life
Ever come in slow?
Or are you falling,
Always falling?

When he hit Andalusia
He stopped in for a drink
He had no destination
He just had time to think

The life that he had fumbled
He had left far behind
And now he faced a new day
Out on Highway 29

Do you know
When it’s time to go?
Do you hear
When the road is calling?
Does your life
Ever come in slow?
Or are you falling,
Always falling?

And somewhere about Hartwell
He found himself a plan
He knew he couldn’t change the past
Or where it all began

You set your destination
And hope your stars align
If not? There’s still a place for you
Out on Highway 29

The Christmas Letters

On 2011120320190101 By Beleaguered ServantIn Original Poems3 Comments

This isn’t a theatrical review in the traditional sense. If it was, I would talk about the Red Door Theatre in Union Springs, Alabama; what all was involved in staging “The Christmas Letters”; and the many fine performances that comprised that staging, both dramatic and musical.

But I’m not going to do that.

I would like, instead, to talk about how I rediscovered today, in an old church converted into a theater, that live drama can touch the heart more immediately and deeply than any of the other art forms.

In a story that spans 50 years, three generations of women are followed through their lives, as told in annual “Christmas letters” written to update family on what all has been going on. Through elopements, births, deaths, war, deception, and divorce — and all points in between — the characters lives unfold. The production was filled with beautifully understated bluegrass songs that helped shape the mood, reflect the characters struggles and joys, and even convey recipes. Its an odd mix, but then, so is life.

Men sort of come and go in the story, leaving for reasons like premature death, divorce, or even sudden disappearance. The women of the family stolidly (or not) continue on: loving, growing, sorrowing. I felt as though I had relived my own mother’s life, and part of her mother’s seeing this story. The sweep of history, and the way our love-of-mate or children shapes our lives, flowing as it inevitably does into either deepening, or, turning meaningless over time is shown over and over. It is a beautiful and terrible and very real thing.

I’m grateful to the writers, composer, musicians, producer, director, and actor/singers for this wonderful production. I know I will never see anything quite like it again.