My Arkansas

There is a deep brooding in Arkansas. Old crimes like moss pend from poplar trees. The sullen earth is much too red for comfort. Sunrise seems to hesitate and in that second lose its incandescent aim, and dusk no more shadows than the noon. The past is brighter yet. Old hates and ante-bellum lace are rent but not discarded. Today is yet to come in Arkansas. It writhes. It writhes in awful waves of brooding.