| A Song of the Old South On a trip to Louisiana, I left a piece of my soul, the romantic magic that lives on the levee. There, by the snake brown water of the Mississippi, is a poetic adventure that visits me in dreams. We were on a history trip, trying to find the grand old south. Not the kind where you pay and stand behind ropes, where a sweet old black man tells you lies of Gone with the Wind. I wanted to find the real ruins to satisfy the senses and feed my imagination. We found a grand old lady overgrown in an oil field. My racing heart ignored trespassing warnings. A crumbling giant with a darkening stage for my characters, a fa�ade, the ruins breathing a captivating eerie quality. Here there had been days of glory and riches, followed by a long night of war and disaster. I picked my way through an empty doorway, I heard the whispers, looking for an age long ago. I tried the crumbling steps and twisted my ankle. I felt a silken gown brush past me on her way up the stairs. The beauty transcended the decay, tender wrinkles of time. All lost in a pattern of light and shadows of yesterdays. And the mighty Mississippi continues to flow on, eroding the banks; the destroyer, the serpentine. She continues through the magnolia moonlight nights, As ghosts of old fears and joys forever haunt us. By Kathie Stehr April 2002 |
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