An Old Man, and: The Craft Shop, and: Dreams of My Mountain Past and Present

THREE POEMS by Billy Edd Wheeler AN OLD MAN "Before missionaries came And Federal planners And men who organized Under selfish banners Their own gravy trains And took us a ride, I saw in mountain men A little pride. Td rather be poor and dumb Than see a line Of neighbors taking free food And licking the behind Of politicians. God, It can't be right If it makes me have to lock My barns at night." THE CRAFT SHOP "If you like somebody treatín' ye quaint, You wait on 'em. I tell ye I ain't About to be exhibit A For snobby tourists hunting a way To color their trip along the edge Of our mountains. Let's see you wedge A dollar out of their deep pockets. They gawk till their eyes pop the sockets, But buy? No, they're eyeing you Mostly, glancing to see if one shoe Matches the other. You love Mankind, Or so you talk. See if you find One thing to love about city folks That figure us for dumb slowpokes. Ah, Lordy!" It was my brother's defense Which bowed daily to his business sense And put him through the curtained door With: "Howdy, and what can I do-ye-for?" I never saw more genuine ardor Or humor in a mountain martyr. 31 DREAMS OF MY MOUNTAIN PAST AND PRESENT -Jan., 1963 Outside my window Men with lean wrists passed a bottle around a barrel with fire in it saying VOTE FOR ROOSEVELT. I laid in bed behind the panes of glass of a coal town shack. My mother showed me how to spell Roosevelt on tablet paper. I wrote down that word that men were saying as the flames leaped up at the rain out of a smoking poll barrel. I was four and it was the first word I ever wrote. The flames went out and Roosevelt went in. Times got better. I ate milk and meat and combread and learned to shovel coal and married and voted Democrat. Somewhere something shorted out and times got bad after the war. They say John L. let us down. Sold us down the creek to big machines. I wouldn't know. I love the old man. It's 1960 primary time and I take my little boy to see John Kennedy. The man sits down on a rail beside me and says he wants my vote. He ruffles my boy's hair. His eyes sorrow for me. He didn't know it was this bad, he says. He's catholic but he talks straight. He's big money but his grip is strong, common. His war record is something to look up to. He could of been a West Virginian. I believe him. 32 We put John Kennedy in the White House and we wait for times to change. They say legislation is rolling in our favor. They say big roads are coming in. Two years pass and I'm still not working. They got a twelve story monster now can do the work of a hundred miners. Little mines close and die. Men by thousands go to Ohio and Michigan, Kentucky, hunting jobs of work. Where can I go? Maybe Kennedy can't do what Roosevelt did, if times don't allow. A president is only human, maybe. THREE POEMS by Joan Moore SPRING for Mary I, aching to be forced through ecstasy to bloom, went into the garden. Sank up to my hot lap in snow. Fell into frozen fire of rose. Bled ice from burning wounds, prayed god for violets to staunch them. Then heard -a song. Saw, in the black switches of an appletree, its little breast now mudstained as my own white dress, a sparrow. Its throat a downy bellows that once beginning, never ceased to pump. All day, all night blew on that silver tune until it seemed the moon, melting with joy, was coming down; my bloom, rendered by ecstasy, was coming up. 33 ...