country spirit
healer of small hearts
teach the children of Adam
lost in mountain grass
the old ways
hold them with folk tale memories
and grandma's quilts and read them
Whitman when they are young
wrapped in fields of wild white indigo
you wait in blue mist mornings
red dirt roads point
the path with dogwoods
and scattered glades
leading to the porch
tonight
whippoorwills echo
your cry,
hickory smoke spreads out
layering the holler
below the Appalachian stars
shooting across a blackberry sky