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Charlotte's Fallen

Portrait of a City

AuthorHouse

Dreamt, wondered, shone and blessed
Drawn, wished, known and redressed
Kiln-fired corners fashionably endure
Red earth rigidly defends its future

Seeders, sowers, tillers and grazers
Laying, leaving, harrowing and hoarding
Sea-wrought outlaws marring lands' flesh and sing
Oft of native blood and the edge of their razors

Look, pray, see and believe
Sail, breathe, give and receive
Leave all gloom for gold, thy rain will cease
Make your green from white, our path is peace

The church of hard faces and court of slave races
Survive their hungry ghosts of fortunes' spread
Thrive on raising anew over history's dead
Build names, places and leave only mild graces

What quiet voices now gush through mortared veils
Were rendered oaken and replaced with nails
Harlot, healer, sinner, saint, heave your sails
Builder, brewer, tender, toiler, leave your fails

Trading stares at the crossroads of cotton law
Reseeding tryon along the race Sugaw
Call to mind the gilded hamlet of a half grand
Dwell upon the sleepy isle meager and bland

Guarded trifling exchange of soul and bale
While they harbored neither pulpit nor rail
Held the tract, maddened stinger splayed
With casual venom, history was made

Great roads would bustle and long waters dash
Fatten pride's mallow and lengthen greed's table
Exalt the holy gain, house the bounty thrash
Bestow steely teeth to engrave the fable

Verging county's berm lain the lemon visage
Unknowing burden weighed the graven image
Bracing the adit of opulence at last
Swinging axes pause, fleeting as some repast

Bore an auric maze to the zealous fife
Crudely casting kings from ground and gunnie
Of pride and past, the young town idling rife
Bitter although steeped in milk and honey

Plodding, valued vale, arrest your measure
Wailing, desolate dirge, mourn your treasure
Pacific appeal left a broken gaze
Brumes lay til azure burns away the haze

Arise cherub, post bias and bellum
Burgeon withered grain, deepen thy furrow
Emergent gift, remain true and solemn
Triumphant spirit, you've won tomorrow

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Excerpted from Charlotte's Fallen by Jodi Meier. Copyright © 2015 Jodi Meier. Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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