So.. Did I really think
the sun would shine down in my house out on hillbilly row?
When the rains flowed and fed great fields of kudzu and honeysuckle
I watched my gardens fade and fall, dry and die in the granite mothered
barren soil, and all the bream and bark in the world just wouldn't
fertilize, wouldn't hold the sands long enough to seed, but still I believe,
still I try. And when it's good, on the front porch above the haze
it's a vision of green mountains and steaming thin rivers cutting
through the gorge, beautiful. And when it's corn and bean shucking time
I still have the heart to whistle "In the Pines",
and I hope someone can hear me, I hope someone will shout back
through the woods, maybe even cross over to this plot of land.
Dried flowers, a dusty letter, Japanese figurine, yellow light on the brick mantel shines
wipe my eyes, look again, and still it shines a cracked
and dingy pastel, and the morning itself seems like a postcard,
a loved memento of the life I've had. But waking always brings this pause,
this gaze into the past... wish it was easier to shake away the dreams,
just set them on the shelf beside the light, turn around and go my way.
Sitting in the kitchen staring at the rusty well water in my James Joyce mug,
have a smoke, try to forget those other warmer mornings and fonder beds,
sip and think about how with today I begin again, yes again, yes.
Daybreak walking down the hill, chestnut and red clover line the path,
wild strawberries and may pop vines perk up beneath the early dew,
think about it: this is my life? Here, earthsongs grew and flourished,
and I knew all the talk about whispers on the wind and the life of the wee
folk was more than legend, it simply was. It simply was the way of things.
River rock and Cherokee rose lead the way creekside to the barbwire line
that marked the place grandfather had his still, and there today I see
the blue tagged stake for the county tax man, fresh, deep, weak nonetheless,
and there today I just kick it down and keep on walking, glad this is a place
where I feel and feel, and feel so much the today of it all, just the today.
Strange water, this mountain blood: Black bear heart and Appalachian spirit,
Van Gogh hands given to the land, knowing the light is sweet and giving,
yet the Adam in me still curses anyway, and I pace in and out of the creek
and moss like this here is the one true baptistery, and I do dare it all to come to pass
yeah, these Ecclesiastic days will surely pass,
but until then there's another song waiting, another blues, another hymn
to hard work and struggle, another reason to stomp and wail, and then another day to fight the silence on the hill.
