Mountain Women: Poems

“Appalachian women have more faces than these few poems can mirror, but there are some wrinkles that always form around the eyes, some same angle in every smile, some common sound in the telling of every life .... 

“Aunt Neva is the most traditional woman in my family. She has always lived in rural Eastern Kentucky, farming the same piece of land. Most importantly, she feels this life is the best of all possible lives to be had, and has been responsible for transferring to me much of what I see as positive about mountain culture.

“Often when I think of Appalachian women, the word ‘waiting’ comes to mind — waiting to leave a parent’s home, waiting for times to be easier, waiting for the children to be grown, waiting for the peace and luxury of growing old with a mate with whom a long struggle has been shared. ‘The Garden’ is my Aunt Flossie’s story of such waiting. She married Elijah when she was sixteen and moved a stone’s throw from her parents’ house. These two homes have a path between them worn by the daily crossings of three generations. Then Flossie lost her children to marriage and her parents and husband to death all very near the same time. After having been a hub in this wheel of family, she finds all the spokes gone and the rim of the world will not connect to her center.”

— Lee Howard

 

The Garden

 

1

She smoothes her wrinkleless skirt

(A-lined and middle-kneed)

Straightens her glasses

dabs at the corner of her eye

and resettles her hands

for the tenth time

in her lap

And says

Lige always had a pretty garden

His beans were the fullest in Clay County

His corn the sweetest

He always took such pleasure in it

especially in the evening in it

And silent

as she combs the new-turned spring ground

for a sign of a dead man

but not one seed of him

can be found

 

2

She had the trees pruned

til their new green

looks like second growth

on old stumps

They offer no shade

Lige and she

just last summer

sat listening to crickets

and the train-rumble rattle

of the auctioneer

selling chickens and couches

across the road

til long after the moon

rose above the dark hills

and the hollows were quiet

Coming from the path along the garden

I heard their soft murmur

like the humming of a stream

like voices in a dream

to the music of katy-dids

they sang

their children’s lives

And without words

stroked the rough skin

of their hands

as they watched

but did not see

the hugeness of the night

 

3

The house rings with only 2 footsteps

now

she watches snow fall

even and steady

as the beat of a heart

She cannot see beyond the yard

of the old homeplace

on the other side of the frozen garden

strange children play

around the thick-trunked trees

She once hung tin from them as saplings

to keep the birds away

Now old nests fall under the weight of the snow

to the delight of other childhoods

Her own lost

with the losing of the two that found her

Her own future lost

with losing of the one who took her

Stuck in the present

her empty womb aches

She closes the curtain

on the endless sea of white sameness

and cries for all that’s been too long gone

and cannot ever come back again.

 

Kentucky Girlhood

If you put your ear to the rail

Miles away trains will rumble their coming

with a clicktyclack clacktyclick

hurrah

Whistle will blow

far through deep green valleys

and ricochet off mountain sides

to stop at the door

of where you hear

inside the ear of your wanting

to see beyond the hills you’re cradled in

So you kneel by

parallel steel

ribbons

Squeezing in between the ties

And pray to the song of a smoke-belching machine

to come sweep you out of this smooth wide lap of a world

before you are rocked to sleep

You are very still

listening

for the hurrying sound of your dreams

And your heart goes

clicktyclack

and back again

As you yearn your soul to motion

 

Aunt Neva

Grey hair pinned to the nape of her neck

and green eyes like summer

singing an old song

with words half-remembered

and the tune tucked into the tip of her tongue

saying

Long-me-life and ’pon my honor

I never

No I never

but I’ve thought about it some

I’ve run me a day and a night

through these hills

and chewed mountain tea

that tastes just like that brought-on gum

And never

’pon my honor never

felt there was more

I should be wanting

than what I ever had

And I had me a good man

who worked with me

this land

and fine corn

head high

we did grow it

and into our stone mill

we did throw it

and all winter with lard we had rendered

I made pone after pone

of crackling bread

And never

’pon my honor

never

did I miss a french roll

I never had

And I had me all I wanted

for I’ve known me this holler

and everything that lives on it

and if I lacked for nothing

why should I worry for something

that could be elsewhere had

No I never

’pon my honor

I never

wished for nary thing

that could be elsewhere had