“If We Can Feel the Coming End”
When the men are all bitter from the wars
Waged with stomachs emptied of memories of their mothers
And the women have lost their tears for loneliness and love
Gone way of the spirit of Roman ghosts,
We will have fallen asleep too few nights
In the beds of comfortable souls…
When the wells are full of family’s bone
And our children have lost their thirst for history–
In from the fields to pass their hours
Frightened and heavy in the corners
Of graveyard walls, eyes to the flashing lights
Of cemetery cities grandpa built
With his rough, rifle-and-hammer hands…
Grim neighbors have built their fences
Too often around our gardens
And we have only the age of Earth to repair us,
Only Appalachia’s legacy to hold our hope.
