Just a picture and a poem

Autumn leaves - Millais

West Virginia – A Life



Once a cog state,

good for only coal and oil and gas,

it was always almost heaven to me.

I sit out this lifetime on my porch now;

my dreams are ancient mountains,

cool trout waters, may apples and black walnuts

white pine and willow, sycamore.

Our old log cabin in the wildwoods,

my one-room school, a walking bridge,

grapevines over rivers, skimming stones.

Winter and I are kin now;

where once was warmth, sub-tropical and kind,

there’s only snow, bone-seeping ice, so cruelly cold.

I seek my solace in the Appalachian Fall,

its radiant colours lift me somewhere high,

a place near heaven, bright and God-given.

I still hear music in my heart,

the fiddlers and the balladeers, they move me

with their tunes of joy, laments of pain,

and strains of Ireland in their tears



Cait O’Connor