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This is a composite from four different locations covering perhaps
twenty miles. These farms seem to not have changed
much in their character in the 40 years that I had been gone from this
country. They seem inviting in a way like the old song, 'And we've all grown
older come see where we have been. Out here rusting in the
rain."
It is the homeland of my dreams. The mountains are there forever with their sandstone cap,
the old barn will be repaired for the next generation to occupy the
land, the calf will provide for them, the willows will sing their soft song with the wind against the hardness
of being and the old gate will always be open in hospitality.
Continuity in the Song of the Earth, Das Lied van der Erde of Mahler,
with a twang.
Powell Valley, Claibourne County, Tennessee you do have a special
character. I once saw this valley in the raking light of eight
o'clock in the morning from
40,000 feet, it was just as beautiful. Very near to these places, just on the other side of the river, my
ancestors came and settled six generations ago. As an old Sioux
once wrote, 'You don't belong to the land until the
bones of your ancestors lie buried there.' |
