Many Years Ago We Parted From the Sunny Mountainside
/Andy Fogle
On the east side of I-
81, sunflowers are
jading, but still tall as me.
On the west side, three silos,
empty now, but much taller.
After hours amidst
the armada of semis,
I must be tripping—just
rectangles and cylinders
floating south along the highway.
The map abstracts terrain,
reduces distances, makes
of water and wood
ink, obliterates
texture, yet preserves
like little else. Can I so
recreate white haze
on the dark eastern ridge?
Not so much. Only the names
retain the touch of place:
Buffalo Gap, Mint Spring,
Hornet Road, Dooms. Some deaths
sprawl long as an official
blowhard’s speechification;
others are quicker
than snapping a string bean.
Author’s Commentary: This poem is a distillation of what went through my head and past my eyes and ears during a drive from upstate New York to visit my dad in Martinsville VA. Its title comes from a Carter Family lyric in "My Clinch Mountain Home." Love for and loss of home, nostalgia and its attendant distortions, how time influences perspective, inevitable decay, and undeniable beauty--these are all important to lots of my writing, and were on my mind during this drive.
Andy Fogle’s first full-length, collection Across from Now, is forthcoming from Grayson Books. Other poems, co-translations, and various nonfiction have appeared in Blackbird, Best New Poets 2018, Gargoyle, Image, Teachers & Writers Collaborative, and elsewhere. He was born in Norfolk, grew up in Virginia Beach, and lived for 11 years in the DC area, and now resides in upstate NY, teaching high school and working on a PhD in Education.
