Georgia Rose

Red Daisy

She came wearing midnight
with Georgia clay around her eyes,
two little flowers in her hair
like spring had found a place to hide.

Black as the river after sundown.
Brown as the road back home.

She has never seen the Flint
or walked the red dirt roads,

but some things know their country
without ever seeing a map.

Four paws.
Two bows.
A heart bigger than the dog.

And somewhere beneath this Texas sky
an old Georgia road runs east,

while she sits among us
wearing flowers in her hair

like she remembers.

Sweet little Georgia Rose.

Boutwell Jones

Georgia Rose

She came wearing midnight
with Georgia clay around her eyes,
two little flowers in her hair
like somebody told the spring
where to hide.

Black as the river after sundown.
Brown as the road back home.

Sweet little Georgia Rose.

She never saw the Flint River,
never walked the fields
where her name came from.

Doesn’t matter.

Some things know their country
without ever seeing a map.

She carries Georgia with her.

In the color of her feet.
In those stubborn little eyes.
In the way she finds the warmest place
in every room
and somehow convinces everybody
it belonged to her first.

There are roses that grow
beside old houses.

Roses climbing fences.

Roses somebody planted
so long ago
nobody remembers whose hands
put them in the ground.

Then there is this one.

Four paws.

Two bows.

A heart considerably larger
than the animal carrying it.

She waits beneath the table
while the people she loves
go about the serious business
of believing we are in charge.

Maybe that is the joke.

Maybe God knew
a house full of grown people
needed something small enough
to remind us.

Come home.

Sit down.

Stay awhile.

Love whoever walked through the door.

The world will still be complicated
when you get back to it.

Outside, Texas keeps stretching west.

But somewhere beneath all that sky
an old Georgia road keeps running east,

past longleaf and red dirt,
past Albany,
past a river still carrying flint
toward the Gulf.

And here she is,

hundreds of miles away,

wearing flowers in her hair
like she remembers.

Sweet little Georgia Rose.

Boutwell Jones
The Basin Collection