Listen Here: Women Writing in Appalachia

Liza's Monday

530 LISTEN HERE LrZA'S MONDAY from Liza's Monday and Other Poems (1986) She has left her tubs and boiling sheets, fled north across the woodlot, heard no grumble from the pigs as she passed, the chicken shed where eggs wait to be gathered, felt no pain as December's harsh wind dried lye soap on her arms, reddened hands held stiff by her sides, palms forward as to catch the gusts that sweep the slopes of Double Knob. Inside the cabin: Ethan's shirt to patch, the fire to mend, small Issac sleeping in his crib, soon to wake for nursing. These and other chores are in her keeping, but she hurries up the mountainside as on an April day to search for mint and cress, to find first violets that hide in white and purple patches by Corn Creek. The ridge is steep and rocky, sharp with briars. Raked inside by gales howling bleak as northern winds around the cabin whine, she does not feel the laurel tug her dress, the briars pricking dark red beads that shine on bare arms. All winter afternoon she climbs until she gains the highest rocks, the knobs where one can look out, trace the spines of distant mountains, scan the valley floorblack dots for shed and cabin, smoke only wisps blown by the wind. Liza sees no more: not broken stones underfoot, not heavy sky BETTIE SELLERS 531 holding snow. She sits on Double Knob, back against the ledge, and watches night come by to close the valley, wipe her clearing out as though it has never been. Snow clouds roil around Liza's head, wrap cold arms about bent shoulders, fill her aproned lap, open hands, Below, the wash-fire has burned down to embers; Ethan long begun the search across his lands. THE MORNING OF THE RED-TAILED HAWK from The Morning of the Red-Tailed Hawk (1981) In holy books, in church, I hear curses, see stones hurled at bodies caught in acts that spurn the law of Moses and of God. I, like Saul, have judged, held coats in hands washed clean in the blood of a Bible-belt Lamb. But, outside my window now, the red-tailed hawk glides, imperceptibly adjusting to turbulence, scanning his territory for unwary rodents in the reaches of tall marsh grass. I too cruise, needing emotion, words to write. Today, I intercepted a man's glance, saw his eyes smoothing the light hairs on another man's arm as they walked the beach. These two are lovers in some sheltered cove, where my claws could intrude, sharp as the red-tailed hawk, his talons sunk in flesh. ...