Show Me the Place, 85

“Show me the place.”

Duke Senior in As You Like It (2.1)

85: The Road from As I Lay Dying; near Oxford, Mississippi; June 13, 2004

We drove the road that Faulkner used—

The road the Bundrens took

In one of Faulkner’s oddest tales—

Perhaps you’ve read the book?*

There were more hills than I had thought—

The river, calmer, though.

But it remains so rural that

You still feel Faulkner’s glow.

I taught that book a decade, and

Each time I learned new things.

A great book is eternal and

New gifts it ever brings.

*As I Lay Dying, 1930