Always Coming Home Poem by Eric Cockrell

why is it every time
i think of the south
i can taste...
cornbread, beans,
fried chicken,
hell, everything fried!
barbeque, good whiskey,
southern baptist revivals,
dark eyed girls moaning,
fresh turned earth on the plow,
oak split by the axe,
squirrels, rabbits, and frogs...

and yes, the hanging tree,
the buses partitioned by hate,
the factories sucking life's blood,
now shut down and haunted.
the milk cows gone dry,
and doors that are now locked.
the meth lab taste of plastic,
hillbilly heroin by the pill.
graveyards desecrated,
the lakes and rivers poisoned....
that long walk across mississippi,
and old cars up on blocks.
trailer parks rusting down,
old depots, and empty tracks

sundown over the mountains,
and spirits in the night....
her prodigal son,
always coming home!