I have fought my independence

in your soul’s marshes,

played Sumter and Marion

in the fields and pastures

of your heart.

I have shot at Cornwallis

behind your live-oaks,

have risen from your swamps

like a cypress knee,

my head breaking

your still, sinning waters,

my roots sunken

in your remembering mud.

My childhood has exploded

in your embrace,

a celebrating cherry-bomb

on Christmas Eves.

My adolescence was mirrored

in your brooding waters,

in their tree-bark blackness.

We have lived always

separate,

unequal–

you with your time-spawning past,

me, too much on the move

to ever call you home.

But in distant towns,

I hesitate now

in a quiet dusk,

disquieted,

stopping now

in a dust,

unsettled

by my memories of you.

Dreaming yet

the dreams of our independence.