Southern Hymn
I wish I was in the land of cotton…
A boy born in Richmond, capital of the Confederacy,
His imagination was captured by tales of the War Between the States.
His parents indulged his interest – family vacations to Gettysburg, Antietam, Manassas, Appomattox…
For his sixth birthday he got a subscription to Civil War Times Illustrated.
His heroes were the gallant cavaliers in grey…Lee, Jackson, Stuart…
Chivalry and honor the magic words,
And a love for the land was born.
… old times there are not forgotten…
There are more ghosts in the South than anywhere on earth.
On still summer nights between the songs of the tree frogs you can hear their voices…
The voices of the Creek, the Chickasaw, the Cherokee.
The voices of the slaves raised in call-and-response songs
The voices of the sharecroppers, the lumberjacks, the blacksmiths, the millers.
The voices of the infantry and cavlary who died in the War.
The voices of those destroyed by madness and alcohol in decayed ante-bellum mansions.
The voices of little black girls in white Sunday dresses killed in church bombings.
All the voices crying, “We were here, we were here, we were here.”
Look away, look away, look away, Dixie Land.
The past looms larger than the shopping malls and interstates and tract homes and office parks.
In Dixie Land where I was born in, early on a frosty mornin…
No frosty memories, always summer…
Getting up during summer vacations, rushing outside after breakfast to play outside all day
Only coming home at supper time.
Riding bikes to the neighborhood pool, tan skin and bleached hair and eyes red from the chlorine.
(Don’t pee in the pool – they put a chemical that will turn your trunks red if you do!)
Sleeping at night on the floor in front of the fan which turned your voice weird when you sang into it.
Revivals at night under the tent
Paper fans with Bible scenes and “Sechrist Funeral Home” printed on the wooden handles
(The same funeral home where Mam-maw lay in her navy dress and good pearls
The farewell kiss when all the grown-ups were out of the room
And her lips were so cold)
At the revival we didn’t sing from the big red Methodist Hymnal but from the little brown Cokesbury Hymnal…
Blest be the tie that binds…faith of our fathers living still…oh come to the church in the wildwood…Lee and Jackson and Stuart were all men of faith.
Look away…
The smells and tastes…
Of collard greens fatback crackling cornbread navy beans catfish barbecue peach ice-cream apple pie pear preserves venison biscuits pole beans acorn squash crowder peas okra okra okra
…look away…
The names…
Of dogwood wisteria camellia rhododendron azalea indian paintbrush jack in the pulpit…
Of nuthatch wren cooper’s hawk waxwing tanager cardinal barn owl
Of deer fox squirrel rabbit skunk chipmunk bear
Of bream bass crappy carp
...look away…
The names of great aunts and uncles buried at Hopewell cemetery where the cousins did charcoal rubbings of the tombstones with Aunt Jewel.
…Dixie Land!
I took my kids fishing at Mr. Carter’s lake down by Denton.
And I remembered fishing there with my dad.
And I thought of the boy who fished there on his one day off from the hosiery mill a hundred years ago.
And I thought of the slave boy who fished there after the planting was done two hundred years ago.
And I thought of the indian boy who fished there with his Uwharrie friends three hundred years ago.
Then I wish I was in Dixie, hooray! hooray!
In Dixie Land I'll take my stand to live and die in Dixie,
Away, away, away down South in Dixie,
Away, away, away down South in Dixie
And I weep with the beauty and the sadness of it all.
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