My Old Kentucky Ghosts-A Poem

Driving down this narrow road

I see

My old Kentucky ghosts-

Tobacco leaves shimmering in gold,

Fences in white surrounding fields of blue,

Barns both grand and forgotten,

Homes both new and vine-draped antebellum,

Monuments to our confederate and union dead-

Lost chivalry lamented with bronze,

Cemeteries with gray angels shaded by ancient trees

Deeply rooted in this dark and bloody ground

Where lie buried my ancestors.

I hear the voices of those

Seemed so recently departed.

And see a land,

Though distance may part,

I could never leave

Until they place my stone

And point me towards

The other Heaven.

K. Martin Beckner