One ... Mississippi ... Two

One ... Mississippi ... Two


Walking up Mississippi Street,
thoughts of hurricanes stay distant,
on this calm and suffocating weight of an afternoon,
discordant with the passing twitter of birds
or the twisting forces of wind.

Blue skies dismay,
a harbinger of cracked earth, of locusts.
The display of grey, of pounding rains
stays in the south, disconnected
from this road that gently, slowly,
climbs the hill.

Here, dear cousin, your distress is barely heard,
over the thunder of scouring gales,
the flash that lights your glistening petals.
How far away?

one ... Mississippi ... two ...


© Kåre Enga

10 juli 2005
Catalogue number: [162.251]

Note: for my cousin Barbara Reynolds who lives in Petal, Mississippi, near Hattiesburg. No problem with Dennis when this was written, but extensive damage after Katrina hit.