Back and Forth

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BACK AND FORTH


           —"one could do worse than be a swinger of birches." — Robert Frost


Where we live in rural North Georgia, 

that the city of Chattanooga


Tennessee is less than ten miles away

does not affect the local day- 


to-day. To hear the lady at the Food Lion

tell it, her visit to the destination


of my twenty-minute commute

all but required a passport.


Still, other than the complications 

of tax season and answering someone 


not from here who asks where I'm from,

it's best this way: prone as I am


to drag my feet on the way

out the door, blurry-eyed


and not all that aware, the more

frequent the road-signs and other


reminders of living in the inter-

state between two worlds the better.   


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