Somewhere in Alabama

I am made of foundry sand.
Copper tubing, sour mash.
Longhorn cattle.
Honeybees and brown bread.


I am Willie.
I am Waylon.
And the boys.

I am sweet feed and saddle leather.
I am stringed instruments and folk songs.
Broken wagon-tongues and chinaberry trees.

I am kudzu and peaches
Sunny-shady gravel roads.
Twisted blackberry thickets.

I am the patterns the sun makes winking through the trees
and curling flower spaces.
William Faulkner and Bill Monroe.

I am a red piebald pony
in a timothy field
somewhere in Alabama
somewhere tonight.