Serendipity
Saturday
morning
was back
in town
the one I didn’t
grow up in
but grew up in
driving the interstate
from exit to exit
in the pouring rain
seeing my stories
for the first time
on the front page
of a newspaper
that somebody somewhere
would read
with their cup of coffee
right away the lady editor
sent me out the door
with directions to a house
in some neighborhood
I’d never been before
where a painter lived
a painter of roses
back then I couldn’t afford
her exquisite works of art
but her perfect petals
graced the front page
in color
and I’ll never forget it
and how I hoped
she would like the story
she called
and I felt like
I had won something
you can’t buy
I hadn’t been back in town
since 2003
after the internship ended
20 years ago
and as I was leaving town
floats went by
and as I sat there watching
this small town parade
go by
I smiled and thought
how much this would have touched
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
that a small town in Georgia
would never forget
TL