POETRY BY CHRISTOPHER ROPES

Solace

My father's face grows softer and his eyes a sparkle younger as he relates fond remembrances of a lifetime's fascination with the Volunteers, the riflemen and Davey Crockett. Rolling mountains open wide the embrace of the Earth, the tender underbelly of Heaven. If you look closely you might see the bobbing tail of a coonskin cap. Davey's dead and gone and the Nickajack Lake shimmers with the tearful gaze of God Almighty and Davey's dead and gone but it is absolutely perfect out here. 

The sky stands still for Tennessee and for me falling in love. I think I'm going to wait here forever. Serenity winds serpentine around Lookout Mountain and the blue above is married to autumn rivers flowing red and gold down hills that curve like my sweet love's body slowly rising from dreams of me; she's rolling over in bed and smiling at me through the velvet ebon curtains of sleep. 

I wish she were here with me, with my dad and me, and maybe then we'd never have to leave. 

Hawks circle, dive, scream "victory!" Yes, "victory!" I was born in the shriek of a hunting hawk, in a cry of victory that echoed in the beating heart of Tennessee. 

There's an Indian who works at the Ramada in Murfreesboro and maybe he's a Hindu, a Hindu in Tennessee, and he's really a great guy, he remembered us after a week. I wouldn't mind at all if he were my neighbor, if his kids were too loud at night, if his dog pissed on my lawn, if he stole my morning paper once in a while. That'd be fine. I might even invite him over for coffee and we'd be awkward and look at our watches and have no idea what to say and we'd be neighbors and total strangers in the beating Heart of God, in a little town in Tennessee. 

I think I've said too much; I always say too much when I'm crazy in love, I always say too much about a beautiful woman and I miss her and she's just like the mountains and the streams and the cutting edge of a November breeze descending from nearly naked trees. She rolls, she's alive, she caresses me with peace and she's clean. 

I've been here forever, I've been here for the briefest of moments, I remember how to sleep. At least if I had to drive 1500 miles to tell my mother, "goodbye," I got to be romanced in the cradling hands and beating heart of something holy; I called out to you, Mother, and I fell into Elizabeth's kiss and I left my soul in a bed warmed by a night of making love to Tennessee.

Hot Spot

Do you remember Asbury Park? It looked like a war- zone; firebombed and crumbling. I remember thinking Asbury Park had given up long ago, quit fighting, sleepy apartment buildings and abandoned hotels staring vacantly through empty eye-sockets, broken windows. Does Asbury Park remember the days when Jersey lovers drove from miles away just to kiss on that beach? Does Asbury Park wonder how it could have let itself go so far?

There's a little black girl and a little white girl, both in pigtails, standing on a street corner after nightfall. They haven't cried anytime recently and their memories are much shorter than the city's. They could not possibly care less that Asbury Park's heart is aching.

Asbury Park… I remember it was so disappointed in itself.