When I Speak

“Enunciate, please!”
“You’re talking too fast.”
“Quit slurring your words.”
“We’ll break you of that.”
 
These are the voices
Others put into my head.
How can this part of me
Be so easily misread?
 
When I speak, I see my grandma;
Her words like honey pour
As she shells peas on her back porch,
Telling stories of the war.
 
When I speak, I hear my grandpa,
Picking strings like Scruggs and Flatt,
Lazily warbling a tune in a moment
I wish I could have back.
 
When I speak, I feel the currents
Of two rivers, swift and strong,
Washing the sins of my fathers
And rousing me to go on.
 
When I speak, I take a journey;
Memories flash before my eyes,
Saying, “I’ll see you later,
Good Lord a-willin’ and the creek don’t rise.”
 
So when you hear me speak,
Know it’s genuine and raw.
I’ll keep the story goin’
And I’ll do it with a drawl.