At Her Poetry Reading

There are no rights and wrongs,

only different verses to different songs

that we call life.
No confusion in the moral dilemma,

just thoughts and feelings that stew and simmer

into meaning.

Do you want to know the meaning of life?

It is the meaning you give to your toil and strife

while learning the many rural routes to heaven.

I believe in you

and in this life, those people are few,

who share, who care, who dare

to make a difference for the better,

so when you read this letter,

remember me up there on your reading stool,

and how I whispered, that girl's no fool,

her heart is pure

and knows the cure

is more than just an oval pill,

a simple thrill,

a space to fill

in time.

Don't be afraid to shine,

its after all, what you do best,

you'll pass this test

and at the end you'll find,

a heart of gold,

a hand to hold,

something strong to mould

into a thing divine

and if that hand or heart be lacking

and you need a friend,

here I am,

take mine.

Lady Birch

(Written for my dear friend Lady Birch)

Douglas Fir's heavy shoulders sag
As Scottie Pine dances madly
under the stormy sky

Sessile Oak stands tall and strong
and hardly moves at all

Poor Lily Magnolia,
bruised reddish purple, she blushes naked
as late winterly winds argue overhead

Yet none is worse than Willow, she weeps
and waves all through the night

But through the storm and in beauty
Lady Birch branches out
and touches all.

Todd, NC

Elkland, once a boom town of Watauga County,
where the railroad from Abingdon ended
to drop off passengers and load timber.
The giant engines spun on a turntable
to head back the other way.

Hotels, stores, banks, and taxi service
sprung up like mushrooms in a narrow valley,
shared by the South Fork of the New River.
Loggers and saw mills made their truck ready
to be hauled back the other way.

With the forests stripped of their hardwoods,
the Virginia-Carolina came less frequently
until, nothing to haul and no one to bring,
like locusts they swarmed to other prospects,
to make their living in other ways.

The railroad gone, the tracks were taken up,
its steel sold cheaply to the Japanese,
just like New York’s Sixth Avenue El,
scrap metal turned to weapons of warfare
used against our own Pacific Fleet
to send our boys to a watery grave.

In Passing

Red-tailed hawks cry out from a high in a pine,
shaking loose a minor blizzard below.
Spin-trails of four-wheelers traced in new snow
look like new-age crop circles
or the landing places of intergalactic craft
that lost their way in the storm.

A man feeds hay to winter-furred Belgian horses,
his breath and theirs rising like locomotive steam;
the wagon and harness stand ready nearby.
A fishing boat cuts through snow at Elk Fork dam,
blowing tiny drifts against dead trees in the lake,
white snow on dark water.

I drive slowly, recording
each scene like a photo
to be developed later,
perhaps into a story, or
perhaps remembered only
in passing.

Susanna Holstein

Uncle Hop

The house burnt to the ground and melted the blue carpet to the concrete steps.
Grandma’s crooked willow stands in the back yard, big with all the years since childhood. The yard seems smaller even without the house to fill it up. The well is fenced around and heavy wooden planks crisscross its gaping mouth. The cherry tree is gone and all the yard flowers have been crowded out by scrubby field growth.
The barn still stands, the red roof faded to pink. I tear through blackberry brambles that tug at my clothes and the bare skin of my arms to reach the faded door. I grab hold of the thick wooden handle, smooth with years of sweat, and lift the weight off the broken hinge. The door scrapes open enough to squeeze through into the darkness. The hay and leather smell is strong. The floor is rotted through and the dust I’ve stirred up floats in a slice of sunlight.
The years slip out through the spider webs and I see Queenie with her puppies, myself as a child.
This is where I saw Uncle Hop after he died.

-MK Stover