The Arkansas Line*

In memory
I crossed the Arkansas line
Moments ago.
Instantly
I was a child again.

My feet dangled
From grandma’s front porch swing.
Beside me
My brother
Laughed at nothing
And I joined him.
Later he chipped my tooth
When he smacked my
Coke bottle’s top
Into my front teeth.
I got even later.

Cicadas sang their buzz saw chant
From every tree and bush.
Moths and flying bugs
Swarmed the silver glow
In the corner streetlight.

With every movement
Sweet summer sweat
Dripped from my body.
The day’s heat slept
In the concrete sidewalk
And every hard surface.

Come day time
Cotton looked like snow
Stretching from the red dirt road
All the way to the distant tree line.
Weary bodies dragged burlap sacks
Down endless rows
For pennies to the pound.

Dr. Pepper signs
Suspended from sagging screen doors
At Houston’s General Store
Reminded us to refresh ourselves
At 10, 2 and 4.

From green water springs
Trout leapt
While catfish napped
And dragonflies hovered
Above the cool water
Just beyond jutting cattails.

After sundown
Dad and my uncles smoked
On grandma's porch
The tip of their cigarettes
Glowing like small dragon eyes.

My brother and I ran to the end
Of the sidewalk
Where the last few feet
Buckled at weird angles
By the roots of the massive old oak.
Then we ran back again
The loser being the one
To brave the "skeeters"
And find our baseball mitts
Left somewhere in the dark
Out on the side lawn.

Way in the back was grandma’s
Out house
Smelly
And home to "waspers" and dirt daubers.
To avoid the unpleasantness
We selected a boulder
Our “Pee Rock”
Which we glidingly splashed in the night.

All this returns
The moment I cross
The Arkansas line.

But I have not crossed that line
Since dad died
Since mom died.
Not in fifteen years has that
Mystical moment
Washed me clean
And made me young.

But it would take
Next to nothing
For me to chase that line again.


*My dad went home to Jesus fifteen years ago today. God, how I miss him.