by Betsy Reeder

Days shorten in an East Coast city
And I catch the scent of West Virginia,
Its winds dropping to flatter places,
Remember the blackberry sweetness of breezes at four thousand feet
Cool in July,
Frigid in January,
Hurricane winds without storms stripping branches from spruce.
Storms sending them over.

It’s where I live in dreams,
Watch coyotes cross the Roaring Plains
Vultures rock unsteady in a hurried sky
Snow deepen on rhododendron leaves
Water seep out of the ground and pool beneath tangles of mint
The shine and twist of a black-eyed salamander
Meadow grasses bobbing
And most of all a million million stars, great glowing galaxy smear
Unknown to city lights.

Come summer, I check for rattlers in rocky spots,
Find turkey tracks, yellow spiders
Wait for veils of mist to lift from dark forested faces
Roots that crack stones
The same that anchor my heart here to this land forgiving trespass
Willing to heal from the ax, the fire,
The miner’s blast
The fury of a winter storm,
Preferring abandonment.

A land lacking moderation:
Hemlock-choked hollows strangers to dawn
Slopes of sandstone sizzling with light
Rain out of nowhere
The chill of cloud shadows
Gusts from an unseen tundra
Heat.
Land of bogs and balds and hope
Poverty and despair
Courage, beauty, destruction
And love undying of the land rising up and falling away,
Rising up, falling away
Offering no easy passage
No compromise
Older than dinosaur bones
Older than the first maple or raven or bobcat
Or ant¼.

Appalachia,
Outlive me and my dreams. ­