Third Holler On the Right
Slipknots of braided wool
lacquer the trees with the darkness of Spanish Moss
down in Kentucky hollers,
where the rules are scraped with twigs in dirt roads
to be washed away by summer storms
and trampled on by outsider's feet.
Chow dogs sleep as guard lions
with manes grown thick with tick and snarl
Purple in tongue and panting breath
with a fight in them only the heat can quell.
It's but the spirit of missionary work
that breaks the silence of family circles-
Cousins gone first, second, and third
down the holler and up the hill...
Butterflies savor every fallen apple,
in a world where nature is common place,
while the slipknots from racial inequality
stain this simple beauty
with gnarled truth and fear.
Time ticks backwards in this holler:
a place with no address,
unpaved, unkempt,
and untouched by the kindness
of humanity in progress.
Copyright © Tatyana Carney | Year Posted 2006
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