B. Lynne Zika's poem "The Last Sunday Morning I Spent in Alabama"

 

© 2022 B. Lynne Zika

B. Lynne Zika’s work has appeared in numerous literary and consumer publications, most recently published in Delta Poetry Review and forthcoming in Backchannels and  Suburban Witchcraft. She is an artist, writer, and retired editor (poetry and closed-captioning). Awards include: Pacificus Foundation Literary Award in short fiction, Little Sister Award and Moon Prize in poetry, and Viewbug Top Creator Awards in photography. 

Website: https://artsawry.com/.

The Last Sunday Morning I Spend in Alabama

My Willie has not seen a cardinal alight

on a fence railing beside his morning chair

and then, abruptly, take flight,

the flash of crimson in the early air,

a kind of promise—or reminder—

that time turns the pages of Alabama days

more slowly than in other places, a kinder

consumption of our lives. The ways

of moving through a day are gentler here,

as if the edges of light have been sanded from a blaze

to a glow, though I fear

a harsher, modern light will have its way here soon.

Last night I stood beside a ghostly bridge,

The only light faint stars and chilly moon.

I thought I saw Cahatchee Ridge

dotted with the pitched roofs of subdivision homes.

It was only the yellow pines, dim lit in faulty light,

but I was not wrong.

In time a hundred fluorescent lights

will blaze where trees once stood,

a forest of landscaped lawns and model homes

instead of piney wood.

My Willie has not seen the way a water oak

glistens in the morning sun,

or how the Sunday morning folk

leave their houses, one by one,

to walk toward the church bells ringing hymns

and take their places along the wooden pews,

or how when evening dims

the palette of gold and crimson hues,

a hush creeps across the land,

one lone caller whistling, “Whee-go, whee-go.”

He would not understand

the bitter sweetness that fills my heart or know

why I pause in turning to the door

and look toward the edges of the night

for ghosts of those who’ve walked this way before

and turned down other roads with greater light.

Maybe one will turn and rest a spell,

tip his hat, then lean against the fence with crooked smile,

speak of wagonloads of corn or hay and tell me

how to stem the flow of time awhile.

A pale, grey dove flutters to the rail

with rounded breast and bobbing head—

or maybe it’s a quail.

It’s fat and plump and richly fed.

I wish I knew the name of every living thing,

of every leaf or song or face

that flutters, swoops, or takes to wing—

that turns toward light to find its place.

© 2022 B. Lynne Zika