“Forested interstates, hiding lakes and creeks beyond.
Nature diverse and abundant, lethal yet never feared.
Swamps where terrapins and turtles bask
Where snakes can kill and the spiders too
But the toughest webs are spun by women, hard but always true.
A lifestyle that cannot be imagined, only lived.
Chic restaurants where beer bellied men in shorts and caps,
Sit side by side with peaches dressed to the nines.
Grace and style with no pretence at anything less or more
A casual acceptance of their place in time.
Bars where chicken wings and lite beer complement each other,
As young men lay bait with compliments, on their hunt for a belle.
The heady mix of religious zealotry and free thinking country folk.
From Hephzibah to Athens, Atlanta to Macon.
History steeped and culturally unique, even at the South end of the South.
Every year the world watches as you choose a Master,
On fairways that are envied and true,
With green both collared in cloth and on oval dinner plates.
The kindling of the most uncivil of Civil Wars,
As neighbour Carolinas’ Sumter shook.
No place on Earth is such as this,
A place that I called home.
It drew me in and spat me out, taking all that it could.
Southern truths that only serve you well.
And I left there a better man, a wiser man, A Georgian son
Six years have passed next week, since I last saw you.
Six years since I gazed that one last time.
At the horizon that you sought to hide behind.
I miss you. I miss what you allowed me to see my truest friend,
That for just one year I got to live under that glorious Georgian sun”
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