We are mountain people.
We are a boorish set, they tell us-
Hard-bitten, coarse of feature and speech,
Shallow and brawling as the mountain streams,
With morale friable as our sandstone.
 

All my life I have wanted to tell them:
That we are mountain people,
That mountain streams have pools of deep quietness,
And that beneath the sandstone of our hills
There is granite.

For more information about Leonard Tate, see http://spider.georgetowncollege.edu/htallant/border/bs12/loyd.htm

........... Astounding.
He walked right past you,
you for whom I have been waiting so-o-o-o long.
Well hello, and there you are so-o-o,  so still...
loam dirt dark and waiting as well.
Small black head, about to shed,

        Yeatman said

    Northern Copperhead.

Patterned even constant subtle
little copperhead, thin to my imagining.
Beautiful in and for the moments that you froze.
Powerful.... open unseeing eyes.....turn back,

"That's a copperhead, you know......"
mmmm-hmmmm..............

 Gizzard walk with Paco

..............Astounding.
He walked right past you,
you for whom I have been waiting so-o-o-o long.
Well hello, and there you are so-o-o,  so still...
loam dirt dark and waiting as well.
Small black head, about to shed,

        Yeatman said

    Northern Copperhead.

Patterned even constant subtle
little copperhead, thin to my imagining.
Beautiful in and for the moments that you froze.

............Power acknowledged,

he returns and pretends once again not to see,
placing himself between you and me,
slowly turns smiling back up at me.
Maintains his pride as away you glide,
ever my guardian, good dog and true.

Gizzard walk with Mary Priestley

  ..........  Unknowingly,
She gives me the gift of a word,
           beautiful word

.. ...........refugium..............

 "The Fiery Gizzard Gorge is a refugium.."
spoken with such certainty, such authority.
My oubliette filled universe
cocks its head in wonder.