grandmother she lived in that dirt and baking- soda soil, her drywood fingers cradling book pages gentle as if she were holding a bird, turning those well-worn wings, their songs rustle the living room curtains. her feet shuffled through breakfast with black coffee, and she napped late in the afternoon.Continue Reading
The George Scarbrough Poetry Contest is now closed. Thank you to everyone who submitted such outstanding poetry! We certainly have challenging decisions ahead. Winners will be announced on the evening of Thursday, December 9. Good Luck and Best Wishes! ** Featured image by Voltamax on PixabayContinue Reading
Appalachian writers breathe words. Like meditation. They might gaze out the window, past that liminal space, and describe simple raindrops, circular, solid, and sparkling atop thick green leaves after a summer shower, each one a separate little universe, a micro-microcosm disturbed, perhaps, by a lone redbird landing abruptly on aContinue Reading
Pears and figs pregnant and poised to drop – all but a few hangers-on tendering pulpy flesh for sacramental consumption construed as high magic from remotest times. Tonight an awakening amid yawning oaks, one, a three-headed high priest cloven by lightning, presiding over a ceremony feting one-third of the fallenContinue Reading
Stroll (For Henry) The sidewalk, his nursery. The stroller, his crib. Together my grandson and I cruise the Low Country bejeweled in dew after last night’s downpour. Our gentle jostle over humpbacked pavement signals our arrival. We attract a following: first, a neighbor woman rushing across the street to catchContinue Reading
“Only one thing in my life has been constant: my interest in words. I should say “devotion” to words – for it has been a devotion, rarely known, I suspect, except among the more megalomaniacally linguistic lovers who have always come to people by way of words rather than theContinue Reading
Christmas Eve 2018 A clock tick away from thirty my grandson lowers onto a chair beside me where we stare at the curious chiaroscuro of Christmas lights blinking in a pattern as undetectable as the reasons for his diagnosis. He sips air with the feeblest exertion of swamp-diseased lungs. SomeContinue Reading
Capturing a misty Blue Ridge morning, we scuttled uphill, down dale, taking up trails, traipsing through dew-covered fields, and slipped off, passing untamed hours of existence. We rested near calm lakes roused by walleye’s sporadic splash, or bluegill’s breath bubbles or striders atop the water or dew-dripped sprinkles pit-patting aContinue Reading
Protection Bricking the house against the happy jaws of wolves, my father and his tawny hired man, backs drawn deep in conspiracy, slapped mortar onto trowels, eyes migrating to as distance beyond clouds. Heat swam around them, requiring the huge delusion of some believable project to produce it. Neither spokeContinue Reading
While sifting through his library the other day, our own Edward Francisco found this gifted poem (below) written by George Scarbrough entitled “The Kitchen.” The Kitchen Broad planks laid on the raw clay Composed the floor. Some had cupped At edges, others at ends, so one made A higgledy-piggledyContinue Reading