My
grandfather let it slip like a joke
that
years ago in Widener’s Valley,
back
in that Virginia sawmill town,
Grandmother
drove herself to the college
at
Emory and had a conversation with the dean,
convincing
him with Appalachian logic
to
let her audit classes for free.
She
soaked up the things they taught
like
sorghum on biscuits, like hog lard
simmering
with beans. In her stiff bodice
and
ebony skirt, she turned away
from
the boys’ snickers and didn’t lay
her
usual sharp tongue to whipping
those
scalawags. She held her strong back
straighter,
pointed her chin to the purple clouds
stewing
over the hollow like she knew
something
special and would keep it close.
When
I got the nerve, I asked her why
she’d
done that peculiar thing, let slip
my
secret wish to stand at the college
in
Jefferson City and learn my way out
of
this mountain life. She patted my knee,
leaned
into my shoulder, You won’t be catching
much of nothing chasing dreams around here.
Then
she stopped, blue eyes long over the hills,
her
voice low as the whisper I keep hearing
on
lonesome nights, but child,
you keep on chasing them anyway.
Sandy Coomer is a poet, mixed media
artist, and endurance athlete. Her poems have most recently been published in Big Muddy, Icarus Down Review, Hypertrophic
Literary Magazine, and Main Street
Rag. She is the author of two poetry collections: Continuum (Finishing Line Press) and The Presence of Absence (2014 Janice Keck Literary Award for Poetry).
www.sandycoomer.com
