They Took Hank Williams To The Moon
They took Hank Williams to the moon.
It’s too bad they never had a chance to land,
because I think he would have liked it there
on that dusty little, lonely little rock.
The kind of place where a man might find
some peace and a short respite from sadness.
The sort of sad that flows like warm blood
through all those old country songs.
The ones sung by men with high voices
that crackled through the radio like
beacons from another world, saying
“Come here. We understand you.”
If I drank whiskey I’d do it in Alabama,
maybe in a little shack at the end of a road.
One where they don’t ask for your license
because anybody who makes it that far
deserves to be let in out of the night air.
I’d take my glass and step out back,
look up into the sky at that crescent moon,
wonder how Hank’s voice would sound
on that lonesome gray rock. Then I’d recall
that it wouldn’t sound like anything without
oxygen, and I’d think maybe I’m lucky
that I ended up down here after all.
17 November 2012
Auburn, Alabama
He hung the moon, but it’s good for the rest of us that he came back to earth for awhile!