Mississippi!
How the name
Wraps itself
About my tongue,
Telling me
I've come home!
Mississippi.
Those deep brown
Waters course
Through my veins
Like living mud,
Nurturing a soul
Never quite
At home
Any other place
I rest my
Weary bones.
I can stand
In some dusty
Panola crossroads,
Sandy delta soil
Beneath my feet,
And I know
I belong.
All around me
Stretch the fields
Of cotton, sorghum,
Corn, wheat and hay.
While I may
Love the hills,
Love the mountains
With their rocky streams,
My dreams
Are made
Of delta clay,
Of smokey haze
And sultry sun
Shimmering at the edges
Of fields as flat
As the day is long.
This song
I sing to the South!
Here I was born,
Here ever
Will my heart return,
When I hear
Someone speak
Of home.
3/20/84
© Fred O'Bryant.