Appalachian Heritage

on the road to Big Stone Gap    as the long line of cars      made their way, slowly        like a dirge          from the funeral home    to the memorial gardens,      which is another way to say cemetery,    which is another way to say      my grandmother’s body was in the hearse    you zipped by in your suv     so fast you likely missed       the hearse’s white curtains, its old-fashioned design

I’m sure you were on your way     to your wife who was about to give birth  or perhaps you were racing to work   afraid to get to your strip-mining bulldozer late

Or maybe it was just the sight     of all those headlights       snaking through the mist

The ghosts of past and future losses     chasing you, pressing you to speed

It is possible you are from another country     some place in the world         where death does not mean slow down   where grieving is best ignored

“People are funny,” my grandmother would say,   which meant inexplicable, inexcusable,         forgivable all at once [End Page 56] Powell River was churning that day,          filled with new rain

     The people who had stopped          along the side of the road        windows down, could hear it

as my grandmother, and her mother, and hers    heard it, a wordless music      outliving us all [End Page 57]