Richard Long

After Being Long Gone

When I rode into the valley
of a slide guitar,
a tambourine, my past
congregation whirling
in a yard of hoedown,
I remembered
my pastor telling me
there’ll come the day
after being long gone
I’d come to miss the potluck
of dumplings, collards, and pie,
the girl leaping from a swing,
the boy who thumped
my ear on winter mornings.

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Richard Long is currently writing poems about ghost bikes and bikers and for the last 26 years has edited 2River, quarterly publishing The 2River View and occasionally publishing individual writers in the 2River Chapbook Series.

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