Geologists Say

Geologists say

Earth’s clay is dust of star.

That I believe

But not from science chart or learned formulae.

Dwarf iris prove it.

Blue aster and blue gentian too,

Sky-coloured violets

By clearest stream,

Blue birds’ new spring coats –

They’ve brought the heavens down,

Have power to reflect, declare

All origins.

James Everett Kibler

James Everett Kibler is a novelist, poet, and Emeritus Professor of English at the University of Georgia, where he taught popular courses in Southern literature, examining such figures as William Faulkner, Flannery O’Connor, Cormac McCarthy, Wendell Berry, and Larry Brown. Born and raised in upcountry South Carolina, Kibler spends much of his spare time tending to the renovation of an 1804 plantation home and the reforestation of the surrounding acreage. This home served as the subject of his first book, Our Fathers’ Fields: A Southern Story, for which he was awarded the prestigious Fellowship of Southern Writers Award for Nonfiction in 1999 and the Southern Heritage Society’s Award for Literary Achievement.