Running through the sandy spring hills, along the creeks, in the pines,
Down corduroy red dirt roads, fleeting childhood, warming climes.
Honeysuckle water and dewberry juice, sweetness in your mouth,
Magnolia and Crape Myrtle blooms, smelling springtime in the South.
The resonant tones of guitar and bass hanging in the air,
Front porch family pickin’ country gold, little dirty kids without care.
Growing up poor but with all they needed, setting the deepest roots,
Running barefoot in the pasture, or in cut-offs and cowboy boots.
Walking in burning summer sands, between the rivers, this is war!
Wearing 30 pounds of armor, tracers flashing, rockets roar.
Blowing sand and streaming sweat, saltiness on the tongue,
Burning flesh and sweet cordite, acrid smoke filling the lungs.
Summer weighs oppressive, rolling thunder booming from the guns,
Nations at war making full payment in the blood of daughters and sons.
Growing older with gnawing emptiness, forming the deepest scars,
Marching boot-clad through the trials, changing seasons, changing stars.
Sitting at a desk behind a flat screen, pecking out lessons upon the keys,
Middle-aged in autumn and breaking down now, failing back, tired knees.
Leaves dropping from the barren trees just like the hair from lengthening brow,
With the fall comes a winding weary slowing, life losing its flavor somehow.
All the tones are slowly fading, except the growing ringing in the ears,
The music now is mostly memories, bring smiles and sometimes tears.
Finding joy in all the little things, moments lived, friendships found,
Knowing soon that cooling winds are coming, frosting hair and frozen ground.
Laying still and cold in winter, in garden of stones, with frozen breath,
Never more to roam the backroads, but peaceful resting now in death.
Bluish lips and tongue taste nothing, dry and frozen in the mouth,
Spirit gone on to new places, but once again a child in the South.
The sounds of men and angels singing, reverberating through the skies,
Content in all the life gone past now, not everyone lives, but everyone dies.
Despite the winter chill around, a warming thought, this one fine thing,
Soon the frozen ground will thaw again, for after winter comes the spring.
