Flycatcher

Kaolin Spirits

The ghosts of Georgia
hold to Fall Line hills, leave
white trails along
the hard, clay ground,
their kaolin essence resting
deep in the earth beneath
the overburden.

Heavy machinery disturbs
Civil War caskets, dwellings
of aching Cherokee.

Ancient sharks lost
only their teeth
in the clay bowels.

Lucky kids, if they wrestle
the ground enough,
can find troves
of these teeth
before dozers dig
the real treasure:
Georgia's white gold.

The ghosts
still hover among hills
of opened surface mines,
wailing , seeking
their own mahogany.

Yesterday men moved
a cemetery to the back
of Veal's land; the old,
toothless sharks told
colonels and privates
where they could rest.