Where I'm From

I am from patchwork quilts,
from Lava soap and lavender.
I am from the red plank house,
clay dirt baking in the sun.
I am from the jonquils,
the queen pippin,
fried apple pies.
I'm from storytelling,
from Granddaddy Bob and Uncle Bill.
I'm from farmers
plowing cornfields with mules,
hard-working, Appalachian folks.

I'm from a chapel in the woods,
shape-note music,
a circut-riding Methodist preacher,
the King James Bible.

I'm from Hyatt Mill Creek,
cornbread and buttermilk.
From Great-Granddaddy Dallas Matheson
planting a peach orchard
on Shewbird Mountain.

In my closet is a shoebox
spilling old pictures,
Scots-Irish ancestors,
my Cherokee Indian grandmother.
I am from the Blue Ridge Mountains
of western North Carolina,
scraps of history pieced
into a Lone Star quilt.
--Brenda Kay Ledford