Southern Charm and Hospitality
by Sabrina Dawkins
Lazy Southern days,
trees waving at me in the wind.
Friendly trees?
No. Trees aren’t friendly.
But the wind makes it seem that way.
It’s amazing what culture and upbringing can do
to a person.
In the North, people are a blur
as you catch them in your periphery
scurrying to their destination,
horizontal sealed mouth, intense eyes,
furrowed brow.
They don’t look your way.
In the South
outside of big cities,
it’s considered polite
to smile and speak to a stranger.
Like the wind,
it just happens,
automatic, unthinking, unmeaningful
unless the Southerner wants something.
Then it’s used as a weapon:
a painted-on smile,
sharp white teeth,
squinted eyes,
as a predator gallops towards you,
confident in Southern charm,
the harmlessness of its façade.
I’m too young to remember the farmland
that used to be.
Now only companies farm in the South—
the residents are inside watching TV.
They gave away their freedom
for cheap thrills on a screen.
Now, without a farm,
without freedom, without initiative,
with only what comes as naturally as breathing,
that Southern hospitality,
they try to “make merchandise of you” (2 Peter 2:3)
with the only real skill they have
after trading in their freedom
for the comfort of a lie.
The friendly drug dealers, gamblers, and partiers
across the street
wonder why I don’t smile and speak.
They took the easiest route, the broad way;
and for that, I don’t respect them
or their culture.
And in the South, even they go to church,
a robotic social event
where friendly, charming, hospitable Southerners
try to deceive God.
👍
Thank you.