Georgia On My Mind

            The gray day

                                    And the red clay

                                    Of Georgia’s dust tracks

                                    Of mind and memory

                                    Haunt

                                    me at 3 a.m.

                                    Ghosts walk

                                    til dawn

                                    drawn by the

                                    darkness and

                                    rain.

                                    Fallen path of lost

                                    Love and lust:

                                    Mary the tall girl

with liquid eyes;

                                    Belinda the tiny

                                    Redbone*

                                    With a sandy afro;

                                    And Brenda

                                    With smooth ebony skin—

                                    Of years and yore—

                                    All gone

                                    Like the red clay

                                    Washed over the road…gone.

*Redbone: a high yellow girl; a mulatto or quadroon.