Old Timer to Grandchild
This article originally appeared in Southern Exposure Vol. 10 No. 1, "Who Owns Appalachia?" Find more from that issue here.
And so our kinfolks let themselves
be sweet-talked into believing
that things would be the same.
They let some Philadelphia lawyers
tell them they could sell the yolk
and keep the egg, and with that few cents
they built a room onto the house
or somesuch. And now the yolk owners
are claiming their gold, and squashing
the shell and letting it fall howsumever
it falls. Let folks talk about our
backward days. I like it. If forward’s
what’s been coming in right here lately,
I’d go into backup if I could. Back up
to the little creeks with fish in them,
the trees with birds, the caves with
animals, the air clean and smelling
of hay and apples. If forward’s now,
then I feel sorry for the ones who’ll
never know. But you will remember
a little bit. You tell them birds
do fly low before a storm.
— Lillie D. Chaffin
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Lillie D. Chaffin
Lillie D. Chaffin, a native of Kentucky, has published children’s books and poetry collections. She lives on Ratliff’s Creek in eastern Kentucky. (1982)