Poem: Old Cars

--for Wayne Moseley

You see them all over the South (and maybe elsewhere), parked in the side yard or down by the barn, long past roadworthiness, rusting out, now beyond repair, reminders of good intentions once held but then abandoned.

There’s the old Plymouth, its blue color faded out and veiled by tree sap, its tires and even wheels removed, of no use for anything but to remind Jimmy of his dates with Carol and the back seat where their first child was conceived, leading to a wedding quite a bit earlier than they had anticipated. The marriage had outlasted the car, but it had not been easy.

There’s the used Corvette that Bubba purchased for him and his best friend Tommy to restore for car shows, but they both got sent to Iraq for the first Gulf War. Bubba came home, but Tommy didn’t. There it still sits, another untold casualty of war.

There are hundreds of such stories, all makes and models, scattered across the landscape like broken dreams, relics of a long lost but remembered time, ​​promises we made to ourselves before life got in the way.

Robert Hamblin is an emeritus professor of English at Southeast Missouri State University, where he taught for 50 years and served as the founding director of the school's Center for Faulkner Studies. He is the author or editor of nearly 60 books, including poetry, fiction, literary criticism, biographies and memoirs.