Here in the coastal flatlands of Carolina
some years later
are only traces of you, Appalachia --
anecdotes, incidents, and episodes embedded
in the sketches of memory

and now I perceive
how you were more than region, place
or even state of mind --
but rather a constellation of human relations
meshed in a rich context of
homestead, coal train, mountain dialect
and the hollow's morning mist

here in the flatlands of the pee dee region
some 8 years later
the context remains a fact in present perception
but the relation is diluted

between then and now i migrated
among the towering superstructures
of inner city;
through the affluent conversational blur
of suburbia;
among the tiny rural markers of American civilization;
and waded in the shipwreck of theoretical logic and jargon;
seeking attachment and commitment in the
concerns of common folk;
wondering through the wisdom of ancient eastern cultural
traditions...

always, however
returning to your finest backdrop,
the acclivity of eastern Kentucky--
how deep
these habits from the heart.

and yet, now returning only to discover
i've spent much of my personal consciousness
trying to recapture a set of interrelationships
which no longer exist --
played out only once on the stage of reality

here now, in the solitude of backdrop
Appalachia
here in the wooded hills
here in the silence of your character --
it has taken 8 years to learn your first lesson.