And so I drove through the night to Little Rock, passing through Hope at 2AM; I slept in my car behind a dry cleaners.
I wanted to see where you were born; this is how I love. It wasn't easy finding the hospital. St. Vincent's seems to have moved over the last three decades; the hospital I went to was obviously too new. We are so old.
But I sought out the old hospital. Left alone, dew studded morning glories climbing near the outer walls, all violet and shy. I sat on a redbrick wall watching a caterpillar and eating peanut butter crackers and drank a Dr. Pepper like I was waiting for a rip in the time-space continuum to occur and you would be strolled out into the world, naked and new. I could see the whole thing, from the beginning, tracing your neighborhoods, schools, playgrounds, the litany of states, friends, churches.
The sun came out Arkansas-heavy and I napped on a blanket under a box elder. I had a ragged copy of 'Lolita' in my car and I read that for a while. In the evening, there was a congregation at the Mt. Zion AMEC Tabernacle. I sat in the back row, listened smiling to "What I Friend We Have in Jesus" and "Farther Along." Little Rock would be a fine place to be born.
