Post 3- Elegy, Hannah Pauley

"One for the Road"

hear them cry
the long dead
the long gone
speak to us
from beyond the way
guide us
that we may learn
all the ways
to hold tender this land
hard clay dirt
rock upon rock
charred earth
in time
strong green growth
will rise here
trees back to life
native flowers
pushing the fragrance of hope
the promise of resurrection

Hooks, Bell. "One for the Road".Appalachian Elegy: Poetry and Place. Lexington: UP of Kentucky, 2012. Print.

This poem is a less intimate elegy, mourning the death not of a single loved one but of generations past, and their knowledge and wisdom. In a time when the destruction of the environment by the modern ways of life is incredibly relevant, the elegy mourns old ways of life, and ancient connections with a natural environment from which most modern-day people feel estranged. No longer is it the norm for people to know how to farm or tend land and crop, and so often we see the disheartening destruction of our natural environment. Hooks's speaker implores her audience to recall their ancestors with the chilling and sorrowful exposition: "hear them cry, the long dead, the long gone," and it is as if she is saying our great-grandparents are turning in their graves to see the way the earth is neglected by the modern generations. Then, expressing humility and reverence, the speaker pleads the dead to "guide us, that we may learn...to hold tender this land," asking for the restoration of the respect and beneficial treatment of the earth that seems to have expired with our ancestors. The speaker ends hopefully, with "the promise of resurrection" of these seemingly extinct insights, values and practices.

(The poem came from http://kentuckypress.wordpress.com/2013/02/08/one-for-the-road-a-final-poem-from-appalachian-elegy/ , I think the website might have some stuff about Kentucky books/authors if you're interested and you know how to navigate websites better than I do.)