Napa is wine; Carolina is whiskey.
Beyond the Internet, but not beyond the ubiquitous Dollar General
Winding through the green pavements of the upstate border road
Seeking Carolina whiskey dreams.
Passing over the rippling creek, past the trailer.
Swaying down a dirt drive to a distillery made by Florida pirates
Falling slats of shacks showing a gleaming barrel inside
A barking dog on the hill told me no one is home
Left me thirsty.
Long an expatriate in a foreign land,
Adopted by a cold California Sierra mountain.
Smelled vanilla Ponderosa pines, touched bold black obsidian, walked a sandy volcanic path.
Spent forty years in the high desert wilderness,
I left, thirsty.
Drank in the South, whiskey, and music.
Rainy afternoons, sunup to steaming evenings stared with fireflies.
At waterfall height, looking below to the great green arboreal creature
Breathing out what we breathe in.
Down in the dive bar, all sweating side by side, no civil war here.
Satisfying my heart to dance with a cousin,
Drink a shot and branch water.
My bifurcated soul spans this country,
Stretches tight, snaps back.
Neither blue ocean, nor mountainside slakes my thirst complete.
Keep on
Sipping from that spiritual pipeline, California to North Carolina.
by Nancy H. Williard
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