Walking down the Antebellum Alley - Oak Alley: A Southern Plantation

I often see it

stifle in alleys

rot in vaults

peel off walls.

It lives in 

the dying thud

the receding steps

the wet smell of dust.

Yet down south,

down the river

are alleys so young

and still, so old.

So green, so calm

at a glance so free.

And there she stands

in her Victorian gown

full of stories, restored

in the big white manor.

Generations of owners

hanging on the walls,

dinning lavishly on 

decorated flesh and blood.

The silver flaunting,

summer verandas,

glossy chandeliers and

anecdotes of times gone.

An abode so idyllic

yet so cold and haunted.

Unknown voices whisper

and the crack of a whip

blood nourishing the cane

and clank of chains.

Torn on the field

split into parts

from one to the other

plantation-totters.

The silent speakers watch

as centuries pass

their boughs bending

of pain, of shame.

Yet everything flows

with the mighty river

to unload the sludge

towards the ebbing bay.

And a lonely bell tolls,
'it tolls for thee'...