Antebellum Piece
Charles Battle
Antebellum Piece
A stroke of burnt sienna bank, curving rendezvous
of sand and Georgia clay, earthy host, symbiotic
river feeding, bleeding silt, the acreage just beyond
the hardwood frame soon to be dressed with a cotton gauze–
oil streaks eddy in the sky like encapsulated
work songs, the record of the day reverberating
still in the fat, molasses atmosphere. And somewhere
a thick ham hock macerates inside a pot of greens,
a slaughtered cow is cured, and flies buzz orbits around
the dark limbs in the trees. But there’s no color for these
diminishing details, no place within the landscape
for manmade interference. The river is the piece
to which the eye returns, its gritty surface captured
on this day devoid of boats and men, devoid of time
and the life that waits, due north of where tire canvas ends.
COPYRIGHT 2004 The Carolina Quarterly
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group
