These people here were born for mottled hills,
The narrow trails, the creek-bed roads
Quilting dark ridges and pennyroyal valleys.
Where Troublesome gathers forked waters
Into one strong body they have come down
To push the hills away, to shape sawn timbers
Into home-seats, to heap firm stones into chimneys,
And rear their young before splendid fires.
And Troublesome floods with spring’s dark waters,
Dries to sand in summer, and purple martins
Flock to poled gourds, molting stained feathers
Which fall like blackened snow on clapboard roofs
Of hill townsmen biding eternal time.
And men here wait as mountains long have waited.