Appalachian Song

My roots are deep in these hills. And hillbillies know how to survive.

Appalachian Song

I am a daughter of the old South

Not the one you read about

There are no slaves here

No hoop skirts or wide verandahs

 

I am the land jutted with mountains

And veined with coal

The dogtrot cabin

And the shotgun shack

 

I am dotted with churches

And stained with blood feuds

I am the Bible read by lamplight

And whiskey made beneath the full moon

 

I am the whine of the fiddle

The skirl of bagpipes woven in the fog

I am the dulcimer and the mandolin

And a ballad brought

From across the sea

 

I am older than cotton

More steady than the plow

I am the rifle and the needle

Fierce clans and fiercer pride

 

I am all the contradictions

You never read about in history class

The invisible poverty at your doorstep

Too proud for charity

And too self sufficient to starve

 

I am the world the War never touched

The butt of your jokes and stereotypes

200 years pass and it is just a distant sound

Thunder rolling across the sky

 

I am unbowed by change and unbent by time

When your modern trappings fail you

You will find me where I have always been

And you will know why

 

There is no place for you here

-Zoe Richardson

Author's Note

Thank you for reading. All comments welcome.