The Kentucky Anthology: Two Hundred Years of Writing in the Bluegrass State

Frank X Walker

739 Frank X Walker “Black Box” Founder of the Affrilachian writers’ movement, which is composed of African American writers of the Appalachian Mountains, Frank X Walker is a poet and teacher whose work is a model and an inspiration for younger poets. The first selection, “Black Box,” paints an ironic family portrait of burley farmers who will lose their youth and lives to the tobacco that once supported them. h in the photo only suspenders, a black leather belt and the shadow under a hat are darker than your face a charcoal reservoir for the sun a handrotted filterless cigarette dances at the edge of your smile like a ghost the child cradled at your hip is wringing her tiny hands unable to look away to the camera she is only four but she recognizes the devil on your lips acres and acres of your life hang from the top rails inside the tobacco barn this was suppose to be a victory photo so you allow yourself the pleasure of a special blend savoring the raw strength of its unknown toxins next to you in my father’s arms 740 The Kentucky Anthology my entire hand gripping the expanse of his thumb I am fully focused on the mysterious blinking eye none of us seem to know that the smell of burley can get under your skin, way under or that the black box would capture more light than the obituary “God’s House,” from Buffalo Dance This is a section from Walker’s long poem about York, the body servant to William Clark, who accompanied Meriwether Lewis on the journey of discovery to the West Coast. h The expedition left the Louisville, Kentucky, area near the Falls of the Ohio on October 26, 1803. When we first left Kentucke the trees had commenced to dressing up the fall harvest an the garden was already full a pumpkins an squash. Massa Clark didn’t ask me to go on no expedition. He just say “pack” an pointed to the door. So I gather up what little I got an more than I can carry a his an head off to a sail-bearing keelboat where his friend Massa Lewis is waiting. That boat was so big you could lay any ten a the sixteen men on board or eight a me head to toe an still have enough room for the dog. We start out on the Ohio an swing up the old man a rivers. When we gets to the mouth a the dark woman they calls the Big Muddy we sets up winter camp a good canoe ride from Saint Louie. The author’s name 741 That spring when the rains come we cross the Misssissippi an commence to climbing the M’soura an float right up through heaven on earth more sky than I ever seen, rocks as pretty as trees an game so plentiful they come right down to the river bank an invites they selves to dinner. Now, I ain’t what you would call a scripture quoter, but the first time I seen the water fall at M’soura, felt a herd a buffalo stampede an looked down from top a Rock Mountains, it was like church. An where else but God’s house can a body servant big as me, carry a rifle, hatchet ana bone handle knife so sharp it can peel the black off a lump a coal an the white man still close his eyes an feel safe, at night? Frank X Walker 741 ...