Post by Raymond Neely on Jan 22, 2011 7:09:07 GMT -5
by Raymond Neely
Rile the farmers, the workers,
they grit and their guts tighten.
Convince them to holler
and louden the ancient eroded
hills about their cause,
or raise up the stinking and sickening,
the dilapidation of drug addiction,
into the sterile new age movement
of therapy and counseling
which treats a population,
a flag or cry or cause
for I have trod among them,
have watched, and met eyes, and
spoke with
this local area of people,
and as a fair and honorable one,
as a misplaced messiah,
but on an even keel with them all.
I heard their stories,
their opinions,
seen them torn and ragged
gripping their prejudices,
infected with wrong tradition,
but stubborn and proud
in a more beautiful world
than once was,
or make a movement of poets,
of artists,
an Appalachian renaissance,
finding the sheer and unmistakable,
unsurpassed intelligence of its ones,
virtuosos,
and as often graced with talent
as those of anywhere,
and design a quilted network
of our best--
This I wonder.
Rile the farmers, the workers,
they grit and their guts tighten.
Convince them to holler
and louden the ancient eroded
hills about their cause,
or raise up the stinking and sickening,
the dilapidation of drug addiction,
into the sterile new age movement
of therapy and counseling
which treats a population,
a flag or cry or cause
for I have trod among them,
have watched, and met eyes, and
spoke with
this local area of people,
and as a fair and honorable one,
as a misplaced messiah,
but on an even keel with them all.
I heard their stories,
their opinions,
seen them torn and ragged
gripping their prejudices,
infected with wrong tradition,
but stubborn and proud
in a more beautiful world
than once was,
or make a movement of poets,
of artists,
an Appalachian renaissance,
finding the sheer and unmistakable,
unsurpassed intelligence of its ones,
virtuosos,
and as often graced with talent
as those of anywhere,
and design a quilted network
of our best--
This I wonder.
