The deer trail ran right along the old broken fence of the graveyard at the top of the ridge. Louie wasn't up this way much, but when he was he always took the time to sit a spell with the folks up here. Old Cassie and Aunt Cathy were probably the only people on earth that really knew Louie; Knew the depths of the young man who most people thought of as a clown and a redneck. Truth was, Louie had the true heart of a hillbilly. He had poetry in him, right down to his toes. He knew what mattered.

No one would ever have believed that Louie read poetry, that he had committed to memory countless poems that moved him, that really said something. Truth to tell, he would have been mortified for most anyone to know that about him. Why, they might think he was a pansy or somethin'! He remembered, as clear as a bell, the first poem he memorized because it meant something. He had been in the 7th grade when Muriel Miller Dressler came to talk to his American Literature class. He had rolled his eyes and thought about cutting class the day the teacher announced that the Poet Laureate of West Virginia was going to be there. But he didn't--he was afraid of the hiding he'd get if his Paw found out he had skipped school. And boy, was he ever glad later that he had been there. Otherwise he might not ever have learned to notice that words could be magic. He listened as she recited that poem, "Appalachia", and his spirit was changed forever. He went home and spent three nights memorizing those lines that were his story, that shed light on the heartwood of his people.

And whenever he stopped here in the graveyard, up on the ridge, he took the time to speak those magic words to the folks laying up here in the ground. He thought it important that they know they still mattered.


Appalachia----by Muriel Miller Dressler

I am Appalachia! In my veins runs fierce mountain pride; the hill-fed
streams of passion, and,
stranger, you don't know me! You analyzed my every move--you still go away
shaking your head. I remain enigmatic. How can you find rapport with
me--you who never stood in the bowels of hell,
never felt a mountain shake and open its jaws to partake of human sacrifice?
You, who never stood
on a high mountain, watching the sun unwind its spiral rays; who never
searched the glens for wild
flowers, never picked mayapples or black walnuts; never ran wildly through
the woods in pure
delight, nor dangled your feet in a lazy creek, You, who never danced to
wild sweet notes,
outpourings of nimble-fingered fiddlers. who never just "sat a spell" on a
porch, chewing and
whittling; or hearing a past time the deep-throated bay of chasing hounds
and hunters shouting with
joy, "He's treed!" You, who never once carried a coffin to a family plot
high up on a ridge because
mountain folk know it's best to lie where breezes from the hills whisper,
"You're home". You, who
never saw from the valley that graves on a hill bring easement of pain to
those below? I tell you,
stranger, hill folk know what life is all about; they don't need the pills
to tranquilize the sorrow and
joy of living. I am Appalachia; and , stranger, though you've studied me,
you still don't know me