More Self-Absorbed Blather

As an addendum to my earlier post regarding roots, here's one of my poems, same name.


Roots
Lazy, lazy bones
shiftless and ungainly
rough-hewn, sparsely-stitched
virtueless gifts
handed down
from my very drunk
and very Irish
forefathers
who dug their existence
out of the slick and gritty
clay heart of the Tennessee mountains,
who wrenched themselves
from poverty to trash
in five generations.
Proud and shameless
gleefully adorning their
dirty laundry in the hot,
breathless mouth of summer.
Faces brown with earth and sun
bellies lily white
at the green nape of the river.
Poor and plain
ignorant and content
pinto beans and cornbread.
The dark purple juice
of a million wild blackberries,
streaming down the chins
of my kith and kin.

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