Beneath the small caves near my old home place… Burleson Mountain everyone knows that the rich greenery abundantly grows. Rocks, buildings, fences, the fields; a smothering vine with no special appeal.
Visitors to the land are amazed at how it frames the caves; to a southerner it is like a pest that will not go away. The vine attaches itself to anything; it is not particular it does not care a thriving sort that grows everywhere.
Worthless, you cannot eat it; it is never big enough to give you a shade. Yet it does have its own beauty as its greenery cascades over the side of the rocky cliff below the caves.
It adds beauty to the tops of tarpaper shacks; entwines the cotton stalk a problem for pickers with a sacks on their back. People who live where the Kudzu grows have made their peace with this dark green neighbor, they understand. It is deep-rooted deep in the south’s history, when you think of Kudzu…you think of Dixie Land.
Love and Peace
Elizabeth
©elizabethannjohnsonmurphree
AUTHOR’S NOTE: Kudzu is not a southerner’s friend. It is like the shadows of evening melting
into the Eastern sky. It has no
practical use, maybe it does as it hangs around forever covering anything that
does not move.
AUTHORS BOOK AT AMAZON.COM
Author’s Artwork: Alabama cotton fields Cir. 1850 – Acrylics and Watercolor
The Last Chapter 