"Americana Asunder"

That clear, yes you can feel clear!
light as talcum powder wind, as Harper Lee
would say in Miss Aubrey's ninth grade cubicle
of growth's beginnings

Holding wind in my hand I could not know
that this one day would end
my childhood no, maybe but a tradition
called Gadsden High School

That clear October wind blowing
Murphy Stadium canyon down
as Gadsden's Tigers push
across end zone ground

Gulf States Steel in prominent distance high
puked an orange light into black night sky
representing the school colors
of the greatest monument of community

That clear, yes you can hold clear
clear embers of remembrance
of that cold fall night, when she burned to the ground
as townsfolk milled around

That clear October wind blowing
Murphy stadium canyon down
As Gadsden like phoenix anew
rises to house neophyte generations

The new millennium's school board in prominent
distance puked out a mandate to combine her with her rivals
just like the furnace fire orange disappearing into the black night, so did her colors-orange and black

Combining with her cross town rivals
to become something never known
by those not called
to ever know it.

One October Friday night
holding wind in hand
I could not know that this would end
as her spirit would descend

Pieces of soul living on
in our hearts, memories and song

Gadsden High School

(RIP-May 2005) 

A piece about one of the greatest high schools in the history of America dying into a mega campus that included Litchfield and Emma Sansom High Schools which were Gadsden's cross town rivals.  The new school is now called Gadsden City High School. It illustrates the death and rebirth of a community and shows that life truly is transient like sand blown by the wind.  But the spirit of youth, hope and nostalgia never dies.  The spirit of my memory of this special place lives on.  I felt it as a little boy at football games, while I was a  student there for a year before transferring and now as an adult.