When I am alone in their woods,
(which may be any woods at all)
I walk softly
with iron backbone
and steel eyes.

Jaguars walk these hills
dressed in cougar skin,
calling their catamount
calls among bear caves
and beaver dams;

they say I am kin
though breath catches
in my throat at sight
of their tracks and
hair stands
frozen.

Donde estan las estrellas?
Donde estan las flores?
Donde estan las conaciones
de las ninas?

Estan en el Valle de las Sombras,
las sombras de muerte
donde vive ayer bailar,
bailar con eternidad, donde la viente sopla,
sopla donde quiere.

Passion flowers smell chocolate
in white dust
along tobacco patch edges
while Caribbean skies
lie over Appalachia,
like a lover,

speaking sweetness
to her in valley cane
and swamp marshes
where dragonflies
glint blue above
brackish dog day water.

This world belongs
to mountain children
where the South rises
with every oak, every pine,
every hundred year old pear,
rises from death
rich earth

to testify.