The Marbles by Nochipa [pastels]
Sometimes poetry
is a moment
captured in time,
captured in light.
[singing at my brother’s wedding with the old timers. I am the small person with the tamporine. I left my banjo at home.]
I hear your voice singing
among these hills,
along these highways,
singing,
of young men on horses
and women sewing dresses,
singing of tobacco hoeing
and coal burning stoves
one room school houses
and church bells ringing,
of creek baptizings,
dinner on the ground
and brush arbor meetings,
[Family resting on top a pile of sugar cane during molasses making. Taken by Pearl Campbell some time in the 1950s.]
I hear your melodies
played on the mandolin,
fiddle, guitar and violin
or sometimes
a lone dulcimer haunting
these valleys
like orphaned bagpipes,
crying for their
momma highlands.
[my nephew near one of many natural bridges, photo taken by me]
T.V.’s blaring,
cell phones ringing,
motors racing
and machines raging
cannot drown you out
so long as this body
breathes.
I have decided to run away
like a pouting child
with a bag full of biscuits
and a tiny tent
Maybe I will climb over the wall
and sit on dry leaves
until I forget what haunts
all my grown up dreams
Or perhaps I will just walk the road
made of packed red clay
that runs past my ambitions
right into the meadow
where sparrows fly
even in winter.