Driving home from the state Geography Bee, we are
neither here nor there and would be anywhere but
where we are – in a place that feels like somewhere
where you finally find the answer to where
it is you've been and want to be. We're there,
on the line between a tiny dot
and the star that lights up Georgia.

Between the old state capitol, newly refurbished,
and the new one in the city Sherman scorched
but could not kill, we pass fields flanked by mossy
crepe myrtle trees. Antebellum homes dot
this corridor whose land is as rugged
as it is strangely beautiful - junk cars,
front-yard sofas notwithstanding.

We’ve come from Milledgeville, home to Flannery, who here
divulged her affection for the Christ-haunted South,
plain folk, marred by imperfection, met by grace. 
Never taken by convention, O'Connor
wrote precisely what she wanted when she
thought it best and kept peacocks for pets 
at her Andalusia homestead.

Closer to Atlanta, we see only wild turkeys
and buzzards. We are travelers, only passing through,
headed there from here. But who’s to say; I might
find my way, flying fast without a map,
winging it all the way from there to here,
back home again to where Tara's soil
waits patiently for my return.