Index of First Lines

The index that appeared in the print version of this title was intentionally removed from the eBook. Please use the search function on your eReading device for terms of interest. For your reference, the terms that appear in the print index are listed below

A critter breakfasts on slain flies

A lot goes on behind my back.

A man’s shadow is a pebble of dark where the hills

A rusty grackle walks the apple’s bough.

After the silent and the stalwart go

After this death it will

“Along about the time willow leaves were the size

And here again to the flight of leaves and birds

Are you up There, Bad Jack?

Arise from your rope-strung bed, Clabe Mott

Beefhide, Zilpo, Mouthcard, Stop

Cold yellow windows to the night, the trees

Come inside

Daring to dream of that which cannot be

Death was their challenge, death the swift ax

Ewes’ first wool and linsey cloth

Father of his flock he watched the children grow

First, I want my dog Jack

Fox in the thorn-patch . . .

From Wolfpen’s head to Breeding’s rocky steep

Has any thought been given to the malevolence of

He dabbed a blob of paint

He drank the bright air into his throat

He killed one hundred and thirty-one squirrels

He was the sun-bronzed, resolute and free

Here hangs a trap spun by genius.

Here in my bed

Here was a symphony of wings

His face is quiet as a fable, and his hands

How it was in that place, how light hung in a bright pool

How say

I am a lifeless reminder

I am alone and all the hills have eyed my sorrow

I am wealthy with earth and sky

I had a child’s wisdom of a thick-hilled country.

I have a letter from Oklahoma—

I have gone out to the roads that go up and down

I know where a crow’s nest is hidden.

I shall not leave these prisoning hills

I was born humble. At the foot of mountains

I was born on Double Creek, on a forty-acre hill;

I went to buy apples at Hurricane Gap

If the legs of the bird be broken

In his last days he let the worn earth rest

In the deep moist hollows, on the burnt acres

In the night’s dark clover, in the burnt wood shadows

In the year of the passenger pigeons

It all depends on how many faces you can wear.

It has been said in poem, essay, play

It will take a little while to find him.

Last night I ran a fox over.

Last night the telephone rang in my head, in my sleep

Let this hill rest . . .

Madly to learn

Man is not worthy like our Mother Earth.

More than sixty years ago

My Aunt Carrie, she tore into the house

“My name is Mack.

Need the words unspoken be said here

No child he had

Not all of us were warm, not all of us.

Nothing has moved in this town.

Now all of earth that fills the valley’s breast

Now has day come immense upon the hills.

Now is the world metal

Now that they’ve set a standard for the apple

Old Granny haste your bonnet on and hie to Wolfpen Creek

On Defeated Creek the night flows down the hills

Our mouths are fresh with morning on the hills

Proud the smooth head within this April air

Rein your sorry nags boys, buckle the polished saddle

Singing he goes, wrapped in a garment of ballads

Slow the dull fulcrum, slow the arched leanings

So long on mountains he had looked

Splintery as legs of spring foals the willows bend

Staunch Republican was she

The cliff gave way and the slope shifted ground

The dulcimer sings from fretted maple throat

The hounds sleep well. It is not they who stir the fox

The minnows leap in drying pools.

The silver light that dances on your strings

The spider puzzles his legs and rests his web

The wind-drawn manes

There is a great moving about on this particular Sunday.

There is no one in this house.

There ought to be a law!

There was a poem here yesterday

These people here were born for mottled hills

These stark houses hung upon the hills

These were your hills, these your foggy coves

They have come down astride their bony nags

They have come early into the town.

They have come with Spring, with the tender leaves

They were a man’s words, a ballad of an old time

They who are strong have claimed an earthly peace

This is the answer to all centuries

This is the bright road to the mountain top

Those, those were my days

Through the stricken air, through the buttonwood balls

To this man dying speak of death.

Troublesome Creek is a highway wandering more than natural

Under stars cool as the copperhead’s eyes

Under the grackle’s words, under the hard bead

Until the leaf of my face withers

Upon proud feet

Weather and time, time and weather

What

What have you heard lately from Sulphur Trestle?

What shaggy hand can grasp the tread of years

when

When a tree shed apples in my well

When a wild bird, a dove, a mourning dove

When the buckeye flowers on the stumpy hills

When the dulcimers are mingled with the dust

Where on these hills are tracks a small foot made

Where the mares have fed in high pastures

Who is this man, “The Okra King”

With rain in the face

With swollen tongues of a perishing wilderness

Yesterday in Belize

“You call that thing a knife? A pocketknife?

“You would remember, I believe

Your hair is growing long, Uncle Ambrose