Appalachia Is A State Of Mind

Appalachia Is A State Of Mind Voices in the night are speaking I hate to go home things are changing too fast. Appalachia? I've heard tell of that/ place Where is home, anyway? "It's a place that when you go there they have to take you in . . ." America's heart/land What is this about heart? July This unique region (now in transition) was perhaps walked over in pioneer days .... hut neglected as industrial development. No roads. The people there are "backward." Their English speech is quaint . . . they be undereducated, under employed, undernourished . . . December Hand gives way to machine I am remembering "home from my days in Harlan County, Kentucky .... and when it gets very, very cold my bones remember things of which I can not now speak. Maybe it is the fear of poverty. Perhaps the bone-cold acceptance of death of the dream .... 74 Hope becomes energy It is the heart of America .... And it is the hand .... the remembrance only of wilderness .... the image of the tree's stature overlooking a mountain pass .... river below .... a gap in space and TIME. CUMBERLAND LOOKOUT SEE ROCK CITY In Oak Ridge they told us "the secret" Would make the world safe for our way of life. Wallace Stevens wrote "I placed a jar in Tennessee . . . ." Youth Council for Atomic Crisis. 1940's gave way to 1950's. Don't be so stubborn. Remember the spirit . . . the good old time spirit of Alvin York .... What is good enough for papa is good enough for me October November Forget about the 1960's .... TVA was only an experiment we had to win those wars who remembers the Manhattan project? Government is for the people. 1970 means ethics. The spirit is still there .... Tenacity .... the unwillingness to change no matter how much the will is eroded with the land no matter how much energy is in an atom or coal in a Cumberland seam. A remnant of humanity is left. April And it is in Appalachia. Appahchia is only one thing that happened in the American experiment. Charles Counts Rising Fawn, Georgia 75 There Are Women And Men Plate by Charles Counts 76 ...