“The way the truth of it hits you
is less white-lighting whisky
more the slow arrival of fall
in a place that knows little
of hard, dug-in winters. Here
we are southerners playing
North, Appalachians denying
everything by the salvation
of the Lord, folks running from
those people everyone tries
to make us be. Daylight bends
through the trees and steady
songs of birds we cannot see.”