and i remember this diamond cave in northern Arkansas…place called Cave City…back when i was a kid…hadn’t even started school yet..just spent my time runnin’ ’round barefoot in the backyard…gettin’ splinters from jumpin’ off this cedar deck my dad built…attatched to the back of a trailer home that sat on a fairly large lot…big ‘nough for a garden mom used for canning Roma tomatoes…yellow squash…turnip greens…

but that diamond cave was somethin’…all shiny from top to bottom…rocks sparklin’…daddy said that’s where he got the gem for mom’s wedding ring…he also said he walked on the Moon…

as i got older i lost interest in the cave…the brightness of it’s colors no-longer impressed me…i found the whole thing to be just one big lie…there weren’t any diamonds in that cave…just nature painted rocks…they were beautiful to look at…but they weren’t diamonds like i thought they were when i was young…i was told by a billboard that the cave possessed diamonds…so…i believed…

all those crystals in blue hues and ruby reds and ancient golds seemed like magic…seemed precious…seemed true…

these lies we’re told…