The Oppression of Blooming Magnolias

On Reading Lay Down in Darkness in Middle Age
 
I am weary of Lear in his linen suit
and his Shantung straw, with his whiskey neat
and his southern drawl, with his lisping women.
 
Williams, Styron, Faulkner: I have studied, father,
all the chapters in the sacred scripture
of southern damnation, and remain unredeemed.
 
Let us bury them under the old willows
among the Confederate dead, lay down
their burden by the river and
 
Rise up, wide-eyed and gasping, born again.
Only then will the oppression
of blooming magnolias be lifted from us all.