Dark Country Road

This is for dVerse Poet Pubs, Prosery.  I don’t get Flash Fiction.  I hope I did okay.  I thought this had to be written in prose form but apparently, it doesn’t. I will do as I will next time.

Dark Country Road
“A swift rhythm is played out by my hands, a cadence known only to those who have strung tobacco. To many, the meter and rhythm of stringing is the only poetry they’ve ever known.” ― Brenda Sutton Rose

Hot night in July – needing to be out of the city, rolling down a smooth country two lane blacktop, Black countryside, no lights showing in the few houses. All are sleeping the sleep of exhaustion. Folks have to get up early go to work in the surrounding tobacco fields. Rolling past rows of tobacco broken only by the dark houses.  Past another small house, dark. Ahead off to the right a dirt road. I pull off and go down it slowly. Dust invisible but I can smell it, thick whiffs of sharp iron and sweeter lime. In the headlights the road is pale pink but in the daylight, it will be red as blood. A meteor shower explodes in the night sky. I stop in the middle of the road to stare, amazed. If it’s darkness we’re having, let it be extravagant.

 

tobacco farm and barn