I come from rags, not riches.
From moonshine!
From the Gospels,
Matthew, Mark, Luke & John!
I am from the wet washboard,
hanging on the rugged front porch!
The Rhododendrons
and the Devil’s Paint Brush.
I am from Fisherman and Hunters,
Farmers & Coal-miners.
Mamaw’s and Momma’s and
“we’ll hav-ta make do.”
From my In-laws and Outlaws, Preachers and Sinners.
I am from “the tried and the true,” the justified, “hard as nails” mountain folk.
The “nail-bitters.” From “eat it or go without” to “go outside and get a hickory switch.”
I am from “Our Father who art in Heaven, Hallowed be thy name.”
I am from the hills and the hollers.
From the Beauty Spot to Possum Creek, Monkey’s Eyebrow and
over yonder and in between.
No cities, but towns with,
“he ain’t from around here”
committees
always on the scene.
I’m from calloused hands and blisters,
lightning bugs, bare feet, and creeks.
From wood stoves and gravel roads
to the smokehouse or the cellar underneath.
From Dobro’s and Banjo’s, Guitars and Fiddles.
Carrying a tune in the bucket to
carrying water up from
the Spring and Creek.
Georgia! and all the way up to Maine.
From clogging and buck-dancing
not quite the same thing.
If you’re not an Appalachian, you won’t know what I mean.
I’m from the backyard. And Ginseng
Tree-house building, playin’ hide and seek.
Friends with many a moonshiner,
even Ewok from over on Carson Creek.
To the poverty I was raised in,
to the richness of that life.
The hand me downs and Winter’s new shoes to
The Hatfield’s and the McCoy’s big feud.
Picking and picking and pick some more
beans, berries, and fights.
From the coal mines, electric fences,
property rights, voting rights, and chicken fights.
Birthrights and snake bites to
Football on a Friday night.
Lickin’ the Iron skillet.
Sevin dust summers, fightin’ the blight.
I am Appalachian and proud to be!
I got that hillbilly bone deep inside of me.
Grateful God gave me all he did and set me free.
Those mountains, hills & hollers, my great jubilee!
