Under the Magnolia Tree

Under the Magnolia Tree

L. Edgar Otto   19 July, 2013

In dreams we go back to places
we have known going back and forth again
in awakened life

Stepping out of an air conditioned theater
into the humid balmy sun the change
can send us other worldly

Which side of the sweating looking glass
of the stage and curtain fall in encore
do we drip with weather fronts of memories?

Lately, bidden to visit dreams, I long for
the rose garden and the sundial the
slower pace outside street theater

By day near ancient roots of Davy Crockett oaks
talk of what the students learned in Chapel Hill
finding myself some sacred spot finds my home

By night as if a tent for a canopy sleeping
under the Magnolia tree seeing but out of sight
its bed of leathery leaves do not return to the ground

Not in my short lifetime just before the sweetness
yet tragedy so close this generation to immortality
to be a forgotten Thor drawing on Eve's back

Some myth, some message, secrete signs,
all very proper the wind and peek-a-boo behind
our opening then dance of our fans

Stirring up a mix of perfumes the cones full of
bright red seeds on a magic wand or natural flag
bursting forth in seasons birth measured waters

Your white gowns before the thirst lost in the salt
before the three days we need to lick the dew
when the blossoming is pure, naked but not afraid

Close to the plantation no one can afford to build
our fleeting souls auctioned off, our own the frozen sin
all gone but some elemental tree before the storms

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