Rocky Springs Farewell - a poem by Linda Larson
Posted by markorton on May 19, 2008 in Poetry
Rocky Springs Farewell
Dedicated to Willie Joe Namath
We didn’t really have a plan.
We ended up here.
A cold brook gives the place its name,
Runs clear along a stony, sandy bed,
So cold it makes the bones ache.
He held my hand
So I wouldn’t slip and break a hip.
When he was little he loved bananas
Couldn’t get the word out
I became Naner for always having
Naners in the kitchen for him.
Even though I was under strict orders
Not to climb anything at all
We climbed the hill where the young girls
Are buried and it made him quiet.
Downed by Tuberculosis, Malaria,
Redundant Diphtheria, sounding like Latin
Names for flowering killers that might have
Pursued Marie Antoinette if
She had not already been spoken for.
He grew alarmed-
We were alerted to danger by an oncoming
Swarm of mosquitoes.
Such desolate graves might be contagious.
Running for the car, I turned my ankle, and Otha
Practically carried me, we abandoned the
Tombstones, with their fading carved-in-stone dates, that
In a few lifetimes will be gone altogether.
His real going-away party was that evening.
He would be deployed for nine months.
We stopped at Cock of the Walk,
A catfish house on the Ross Barnett Reservoir.
My grandbaby toasted the Mississippi Legends
With Rolling Rock…
“Forrest! Van Dorn! Pemberton! Davis!
Brilliantly outfoxed even Ulysses and Tecumseh!
At least for a spell. “
I reminded him
The pride of Dixie and
Its Sons
Sleep under the red clay
We stand on.
Don’t you fall asleep!
Don’t you fall asleep!
I had never told Otha
I had buried his shot
Dead in the back
Father and what a farce his
Daddy’s death had been–
Killed in an accident
In another misguided war–
I brought this one up on
Honor and sacrifice!
We salted our beers,
And it was the bubbles
Not the South
That rose again,
Tickled our noses and
Made us laugh.
I had to laugh.
Letting him go like this
Behind a lie…
His whole life
A let’s pretend.
Whatever happens
To my little one in Iraq,
Black umbrellas or no
I’ll wear that smile like a flag.
We drank up,
And he drove his Naner home.
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