George Lewis Avery

This author holds a Master of Science in Agronomy from Auburn University, with minors in Literature and the Arts while rebuffing a lifelong yen to study Latin. "Born hitchhiking on the tail end of a cotton sack", the author asserts, "I became unfocused at an early age, and lost myself in the coastal Serengeti south of the Piedmont. Footloose and predisposed, I got lured away by a coquettish gypsy moth; but, when it abandoned me for an old flame, I freewheeled with the kiting Monarchs, until repatriated with my family at the ripe old age of six. They clipped my Huck Finnish wings, put footwear on my clod-happy feet, and bade me to wash behind my ears; and then ... they burdened me with a text book. I kicked and screamed all the way to the school bus. I must say, this Orwellian realignment put me in a stable frame of mind. As, since then, all I've ever wanted was to become a farmer, and a poet. That is why, to this day I burn the midnight oil, sleep in until mid-morning, and then immerse myself in doing chores until the cows come home. Still, arrives each Autumn, when trees disrobe, days shorten, and sunsets inspire, an urgency overrides my slack composure, and I become antsy and long to chase after the southerly goose and the journeying butterfly; and, not if, but when I do fly the coop, I will prop my hoe as a pointer. Until then,I will plow a lonely furrow and await the renaissance. Regrettably, after all my instruction, I still am no Latin scholar. I'm more the ten o'clock variety. Thus, I bleed as follows: insomnia, poured into a cup; no cream nor sugar added; two slabs of bacon, thinly sliced, sizzling, on the skillet burning. My house keeps an untidy yard, for winds and rains to play in; while memory props an open window, for starry nights to stray in. Pencil poised, I hold my course; and by mid-morning of the nth day, I've steered my spacecraft into the sun, rejoicing, oh rapture, I am done." - Geo. L Avery ['Ars longa, vita brevis ... art is long, life is short']