The magnolias still bloom but no one tends the graves The gentlemen have gone replaced by men who shout who chew with open mouths and call it liberty Appomattox was the grave Reconstruction was the stone and television, the final shovel covering everything beneath They sold the manors for strip malls and concrete traded reverence for revival tents and revival tents for nothing at all The planter's coat, the colonel's bow buried with the men who wore them Now the conqueror dresses his captives in sneakers and profanity What Zeus could not do what Caesar would not dare a merchant class accomplished with a railroad and a bank Somewhere a mockingbird still sings over an unmarked field No one listens No one was taught to.