~ Delta Poetry Review ~

James Miller Robinson

Between Hattiesburg and Picayune

I didn’t realize there was so much Mississippi

between Hattiesburg and Picayune

even though the shorter stretch

between Meridian and Laurel

seems to somehow expand

as the rails part kudzu and pines

through which I catch a fleeting glimpse

of logging towns, lumberyards,

and cement plants opening the woods

with white dust from escalating troughs

where chunks of limestone are conveyed

to be transfigured

into various grades of gravel and lime.

                                           There are

hay fields and pastures of cattle grazing

on grass so lush it glows and grows

as fast as they can ruminate it into cud.

Rusty pickups and logger trucks in disrepair

prop on tripod jacks and concrete blocks

as goldenrods, ragweed, and Queen Anne’s Lace

gather and rise. Rows of graying FEMA trailers

sit empty and wasted from Katrina.

                                           Rivers,

creeks, and bayous with unpronounceable names

garble Choctaw, English, and French

into exotic combinations neither could comprehend.

In lonesome and abandoned settlements

hundred-year-old houses face the tracks

with weakening but adamant faith

as diminishing trains rush by without slowing.

Muddy water rises from the forest floor

as the Pearl River Basin seeps from the south

and forty miles away, New Orleans

threatens to claim Picayune as part of its kingdom.

James Miller Robinson has three chapbooks in print and recent work in Aethlon: A Journal of Sport Literature, Third Wednesday, San Pedro River Review, I-70 Review, Coal City Review, and others. He is a court interpreter of Spanish registered with the Alabama Administrative Office of Courts and has served as an assistant editor of POEM Magazine.