my mind wanders through my family

my mind wanders through my family
.

circus giants
painters
prophets
preachers
and banjo pickers
.
drunken philosophers
piano players
poets
indian chiefs and their princesses
.
marauding cavalry-men
coal miners
deuling fiddlers
honky tonk singers
and moonshiners
.
beauty queens
saloon whores
tobacco men
horse tycoons
cowboys and cowgirls
jockeys
and politicians
.
morticians and go-go dancers
.
suitcase of a son lost at sea
full of bonds
that arrived home
decades after the world war died
.
seamstresses
cheerleaders
medicine women
pipe smoking farmers
cedar carpenters
ballerinas
and race car drivers
.
my mind wanders through my family
over Kentucky red clay
and unspoken magic