Black-eyed Susan

Weekend road trip to tiny towns on back roads  
Round bales strewn around the hay fields  
Time was square bales would have littered the fields  
Old barns still leaning, weathered wood like old gray men  
Skinny cows standing in a pasture  
Fat cows laying in the shade of sweet gum trees  
Little white-washed community churches,
Each with a cross crowning their steeple  
Lonely county roads baking in the sun  
Swaying along the shoulder and up to the woods  
Black-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia hirta)  
And orange ditch lilies (Hemerocallis fulva)  
Seem happy and doing well  
We look down for water at each bridge we cross  
Read the names of creeks and rivers on signs out loud  
We walk the town squares and spend a few minutes  
Staring at courthouse fountains, eat at a diner with the locals  
Drive around looking at big Antebellum houses  
Their tall white columns still standing guard  
Rocking chairs positioned on their porches waiting  
We try to imagine times gone by and wonder who lived there  
And how life must have been back then    
We see the towns people going about their daily life in this,  
Probably the only place they’ve ever lived, to us it is adventure
We set out for more backroads and historical markers  
Before we head back to our little world and the place we call home.