"Song of the Kudzu Vine"

I picked up a book the other day at Palmer Home Thrift Store-- where all proceeds go to support the Palmer Home for Children-- by Channing Cope, an old Georgia farmer. It's titled, Front Porch Farmer (1949, Turner E. Smith & Company, Atlanta, Georgia). My goodness! Those Front Porch Farmers back in the crappy olden days sure had some interesting ideas.

IT'S A MIRACLE!

Chapter 3, "The Miracle Vine," concludes with a poem Ollie Reeves, Poet Laureate of Georgia. (There's no Wikipedia page for Ollie, or Oliver Reeves, but you can make one. Emory University, however, has his papers.)

The lovely little poem is below the fold.

Song of the Kudzu Vine

The Kudzu vine is a hardy plant
And it grows where other good vines can't;
Where the land is poor and the clay banks stand
And the gullies run through the tortured land.

Here it spreads its leaves on the wasting loam
And it sends it roots and clusters home. 
And it saves teh farmer hours of toil
As it spreads these roots to hold the soil.

Ah, you may have watched the black snake run
To the shaded hole from the blistering sun, 
And you may have stood at the old race track
As the thoroughbreds came thundering back;

And you have seen the swallow's flight,
And the shooting star in the deep dark night,
But until you've watched kudzu grow,
You've never seen the fastest show,

Over the rock piles, under the brush,
Climbing the hillsides on with a rush,
Down the ditches, into the glade
Shielding the earth with a comforting shade.

There goes kudzu ever in flight,
Swift in the sunshine, swifter at night.
Happy the hog and grateful the kine
Nourished by food that's held in the vine,

Happy the farmer, happy the day
Gathering kudzu, tossing the hay,
Come join the chorus, help us to sing
Down with erosion, "Kudzu is king!"

Yeah. I don't think so.