His Father's Grave

SMITH. When you have a good idea and something clicks in your mind and you know it's right, don't ever let an editor talk you into making a change you regret. Don't ever do something to please an editor simply because he is making a change to please popular taste, to make something more saleable, to jazz it up. I don't write to please an editor. I write for myself. There will always be an audience for good writing from someone who can catch the beauty of language. Nobody really knows what the popular taste is, and people I see prostituting themselves to write for money, to write for a market, rarely make the money. And rarely does the market notice them. Postscript: Certainly the literary world inside and outside the Appalachian region is taking notice ofLee Smith. Her love ofwriting, her earfor language, and her ability to tell a convincing story are some of the reasons why, last year, she was listed as one of the most talented writers in the South by Newsweek magazine. Although she now lives in Chapel Hill and currently teaches atNorth Carolina State University in Raleigh, southwest Virginia is proud to claim Lee Smith as one of its own. His Father's Grave We went together, In those cool evenings Under the lilac skies, Passion welling up in my bones Like so many spinning helicopters Cast from the Maple trees. Rake and hoe in hand Among the fragrant graveyard flowers We cleared the tiny square of his father's Eternal land And placed the plastic roses in a cluster At his head. Always reverently We caressed this simple symbol of him Carefully picking Even the tinest of imaginary matter From the surface of the grassTouched like the softness of a baby Being guarded in its deepest sleep. I was the only one who would go, Although I feared that someday I too, With rake and hoe in hand Would go among the fragrant graveyard flowers To clear the tiny square of my father's eternal land To place the roses in a cluster at his head. -James B. Goode 60 ...