Water finds its own level where it settles.
A fool makes decisions with heads or tails.
These are things I remember my daddy
would always say. You know, it's too bad he
didn't get that through my brother Willie's
head. That fool found his level in the lowest places.
Through all the bad, Daddy said still he
was his son. Couldn't deny they shared faces.
We buried Daddy in '53. They
finished the dam, backed up the Oconee
that year to make power. They made a lake,
changed the town. Covered farms, drowned a tree
or two. They bought all the land on that new shore.
And you know, things gon keep changing as sure
as fools make decisions with head or tails
and water finds its own level where it settles.
Published in Blood Ties and Brown Liquor (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2008).
Published: 27 February 2009
© 2009 Sean Hill and Southern Spaces