I turns ghosts into stone & stone into ghosts the old man told me in stuttering tongue that spoke hardscrabble carolina & cotton & klan \/ I takes these gnarly hands & digs names into rocks of folks who used to be \/ now gone ghost & waitings to be tied back down to the dirt where theys belong \/ not lingering or wondering or wandering away from those\u2019uns they miss \/ then them rocks become refuge to them ghosts \/ a place to rest finally & be there for them living ones to come & tell secrets \/ <\/p>\n
see them stains right there on that boy\u2019s rock \/ them\u2019s lines from tears collected by that there ghost \/ maybe from a mama or daddy or somebody loved long & good \/ <\/p>\n
over there somewhere be one where a lady bad hurt & grieving did her own cutting into my rock left her own words so that certain ghost would know things for always \/ <\/p>\n
if you looks right over by that toppled cedar you\u2019s gonna find a little bitty rock for a little bitty ghost didn\u2019t have much time here in this world \/ and you\u2019s gonna see all kinds of toys & such all round it \/ sometin\u2019 new bout ever few weeks \/ I know it sad for them folks loved that baby \/ but I likes seeing ain\u2019t no forgetting \/<\/p>\n
you know what I\u2019s often wonders \/ he asked \/ whether them little ghosts gets a chance to come back to try again \/ or whether jesus does just keep \u2018em for hisself<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t mind none \/ he told me \/ what peoples do with my rocks cause if\u2019n it helps somebody &
\nlets them & that ghost have some peace then guess my job be done<\/p>\n
what I knows for sure \/ he said \/ is those of us living ain\u2019t always very smart about life & wastes it or makes a mess of it \/ probably same for lots of these ghosts \/ but maybe when you get turned into stone you gets time to cast back \/ ponder it all & makes some amends \/ who knows \/ or maybe you being a ghost makes you a lesson for other peoples makes them think a little more about making more of lives<\/p>\n
maybe when you a ghost you evens gets to laugh & cry a little bit \/ which may be the best of what living in this world might be & what will be left over yonder<\/p>\n
then he walked away slow & hurting a little \/ but let his hand slide along the top of one of his rocks in a way that spoke love<\/p>\n
I turns ghosts into stone & stone into ghosts the old man told me in stuttering tongue that spoke hardscrabble carolina & cotton & klan \/ I takes these gnarly hands & digs names into rocks of folks who used to be \/ now gone ghost & waitings to be tied back down to the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[12],"tags":[25],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Jypy-24f","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7951"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7951"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7951\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10203,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7951\/revisions\/10203"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7951"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}