Appalachian Morning

In Memory of Willmoore Kendall

They live here, these forlorn
people—no riches to
relinquish; their dawn no
different than any
other’s on this morning.
But what is their truth, if
any such thing there is,
and how may we find it?
Dare we even ask, let
alone search, these bare hills
and hard worn dry valleys
for a sullied answer?
And what if we found it?
Would anyone believe?

Perhaps if we employ
the immanent method:
Through samples and quartiles
of the right ones, in all
the most proper places;
through response and study,
with adequate clusters
and scales refined and then
validated by faith—
the one time when things hoped
for, but never to be
seen, are mentioned without
so much as even a
wink of the skeptic’s eye.

What if we take into
consideration the
duly noted persons
(with a word, of course, as

                    *

to who is informed and
who almost never is)?
What if we break them down
like discarded fruit crates
according to who feels
guilty, whether they will
submit, and other such
traits? Shall we find out who
is hostile, suspicious,
rigid, intolerant?

Will anyone buy a
word of it? If not, what
if we can get them on
couches and pry deeply
into their empty minds?
Never mind that if their
God never died because
He never lived, only
for that reason we need
not ask futile questions
anymore than we need
build a fence to contain
the honeysuckle vines
that grow wild on their hills.

Here is truth: Here where roads
remain dirt and heat is
by coal fire, the black smoke
twisting above scrub pines
to cold, gray skies; here where
people who never were,
with gaunt, lined faces, leave
their darkness and squint in
the bright light of time; here
where such questions aren’t asked
because they don’t matter
any more than they do;
here where they know what they
know and still live by it.

Here their ways are set by
living and, thus, knowing
what is so firmly grasped
that they need not ponder.
Here a man will lift his
hand and reach into the
acrid fire, grasp a red
ember, and touch it to
his lips, or take up the
serpent and dance with it.
Most will scorn the notion:
Who has seen Ezekiel’s
amber wheels turn? Who has
tasted the sweet honey?

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