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LOUISE McNEILL 437 THE OTHER WOMAN from Appalachian Heritage (1985) This windy morning as I stuffed The rags around my window sill, I found the strips that she had tucked Against a wind that now is still. Her rags were brown, and mine are gray Hers stained and rotted; mine are new; And yet, as women learn to stuff (As once, at least, all women do) Rags against terror-so she bentThen I, and now our rags are blent Gray in the brown; from hill to hill My wind goes screaming-hers is still. AUBADE TO FEAR (HEAVY WITH CHILD) from Hill Daughter (1991) Last night as I lay cold with fear Of my travail now drawing near, A gray wind I no longer hear Blew from the darkness over meBlew southward from the Nom-white skies Until I slept with seeing eyesSeeing no bauble fit to prize. Not seeing dawn, its thin gray trace Turn gold upon the pillow lace And touch the warm beloved face. Not seeing all I lived to own: The torque of rubies, stone by stone, The living pages touched and known. 438 LISTEN HERE Seeing instead that nets are small Which shield us from the sparrow's fall, How frail the rooftree and the wall, How thin the string by which we tie Our great ships of the wind and skyAnd what a little thing to die. HILL DAUGHTER from Hill Daughter (1991) Land of my fathers and blood, oh my fathers, whatever Is left ofyour grudge in the rock, ofyour hate in the stone; I have brought you at last what you sternly required that I bring you, And have brought it alone. I, who from the womb must be drawn, though the first born, a daughter, And could never stand straight with the rifle, nor lean with the plow; Here is ease for the curse, here is cause for the breaking of silence. You can answer me now. It has taken me long to return, and you died without knowing, But down where the veins of the rock and the aspen tree runLand of my fathers and blood, oh my fathers, whatever Is left ofyour hearts in the dust, I have brought you a son. ...

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