Abandoning Red Hill

Now it is a vineyard, like so many others;/But when you taste its wine, you drink the blood of your brothers.' From Red Hill, a French folk song.

I let someone else do the driving for a little while-

I watched the lines blur behind us, each racing after the next,

towards some vanishing point just beyond the Stuckey's sign;

 

I am abandoning Red Hill again.

 

I screamed to get in there many years ago,

trapped between Heaven and a birthing table,

taking in just so much air to mark some territory.

No, my feet don't fit my legs too well,

if lamp-burnt movies don't lie.

I spent more time falling in those badly-lit days;

I was learning to stand like a man, like a Midwest farmer man-

until push came to shove, and I retired my number.

 

I am abandoning Red Hill again, and the weight of it scares me-

I will no longer have forts to defend from night-time attack,

and defenseless clay soldiers will have to fend for themselves.

(I will be back for you, I promise.)

 

Now the asphalt-hard truth is staring holes right through me-

Red Hill will never leave me, will never turn me away;

Red Hill will always be mine for the asking;

(I could never ask for more from any other memory.)

 

Pull over, I'm ready to drive now.