Fiddle-dee-dee

Shot has plowed up a war buckle and announced

he’ll heave in a heap of Rebel treasure and buy

us a big Christmas, then some Germans to work

the dairy. Arrowpoints we’ve had here aplenty

from the mound builders who roamed the woods,

and I read some of their gods were birds—owls

and wrens and the like—but they shot them still.

We’re a dangerous lot when we stalk the sacred.

One can nearabout imagine praying to the red-crest

log cock called pileated, but generally the redskins

sound demented in their legends. Shot, however,

is a wholly modern man, ready to profit from war

and all of Sherman’s mischief. The civic minded

say all the land hereabouts is bloody, therefore

sacred. Milledgeville was, after all, the old-time

Georgia capital. Dementia persists. Regina

and I just last summer saw “The Wind” in Macon.

It seems some theater has always got it going,

as if the state can’t operate without the Margaret

Mitchell spell holding us crackers in thrall,

though not us only, as Yankee tourist coveys

desperately seeking Clark Gable and a petting

zoo of “pickininnies” troll the roads, seeing Tara

on every bend. By the railroad depot I have spied

a pair with their mine detectors floating over

trash and grass, their skulls clamped in a bomber

pilot’s headphones, grinning scarlet faces akin

to somebody in a hammerlock. Canteens, slugs,

war buttons, or Vivian Leigh’s barrette—they want

what Shot wants, to touch a phantom and be

lifted, then famous, then rich. I harbor higher

aspirations; I want the moon, so I drag on out

to the coop, shoo the hens and ransack amid

dark straw. I’ll pick my own artifacts, eggs

white and smooth and cool as the lunar rock

in a child’s mind and ready to render the sun.

As to the Rebel-besmitten, they do bring cash

to this sleepy place, and if they have infected

Shot, I’m sure God can forgive even that.

I will need him to mow and repair the pen

where a fox or some other nightwalker has

gnawed the wire, but one more idle hour

won’t run us to ruin, and it makes him smile.

Let him dig. Whatever loosens up the soil

will ease next planting, and I like to keep him

somewhat wore out and dis-mischiefed himself.

He’s over there swinging the pick like a miner.

Now a blue tourist coupe has paused to gawk:

belle-like, our peacock unfurls the oriflamme

of his July feathers and screams. Like hunters

ready to spear a bird god, they point and wave.

Whether at the bird or me (both equal items

in the show), I’d be hard-pressed to say,

and I can cut the fool as well as any native:

“Don’t know nothing about birthing no babies.”

“I’ll never be hungry again.” It’s all a sham—

the cavaliers and honor of dear Dixie’s legacy.

Fiddle-dee-dee? Frankly, my dear, I don’t give. . . .