Sydney Gayle Maddox

New Fall Blues

A silent revisit--
images and ideas
forming and breaking
ripples suggesting this
covert subterranean action
stirring the surface
of my inner wellspring

(Remembering the whisper of
the cloud-blued Knobs)

Old kentucky maples
elegantly gnarled elders
(making a living off of dirt like
my family used to do)
miss my questions
my stories told
Beneath whispering leaves
of trumpery gold

This city pours lye
on memories cherished
Arch sodium lights
Censor starlight
Silence constellations
Putting a megawatt glitch
in mental processing
Some tenacious images
manage to survive

So much beauty
enlightenment enrichment and
No soul to be found
in this marble and concrete
A sorry stand-in
for bluegrass and March breezes

If only education
Was really education

Sydney Gayle Maddox

- 2004 -