An Appalachian Country Rag

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"A prayer for the people of Haiti,/ who, on a good day,/ must take heroic measures just to wake the next,/ And who must now find a way/ to live through the end of the world:/
Lord who speaks in earthquakes/ Speak now in miracles./
I thank you, that first prayer begins. Modeh Ani. The words spoken for the/ marvel of having woken up alive./
Lord whose relief work is beyond our capabilities/ Breathe life today into those buried alive/
I lie grateful before You, this King who lives and endures, for having brought/ me back this soul inside me, and with compassion./
Lord who speaks in childbirth, hear Your children now./
Hear those who have yet to be saved,/ Hear those who have been saved but whose limbs and lives are crushed, Hear/ those who pray for those who can no longer pray for themselves./
Lord who invented the language of love/ Teach those who, in Your name, who, calling themselves men of God, can find it/ in their hearts to speak only blasphemy and cruelty and scorn./
Lord who speaks in apocalypse/ Armor the souls of those who call out now in rescue/ Lord who has taught us by example the language of loss/ Send strength to those who, with their last strength/ Now seek nothing more than finding loved ones/
Teach Your children by example, to comprehend the last line of that first/ prayer:/
Your faith/ is immense."
-- c. Bradley Burston (award-winning Mideast journalist, columnist for Haaretz and Senior Editor for Haaretz.com, republished with author permission, rights reserved)

CARE help

SERVE AND SUPPORT

"My country,' tis of thee,/ sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing;/ land where my fathers died,/ land of the pilgrims' pride,/ from every mountainside let freedom ring!/ My native country, thee,/ land of the noble free, thy name I love; / I love thy rocks and rills,/ thy woods and templed hills; / my heart with rapture thrills, like that above./ Let music swell the breeze,/ and ring from all the trees sweet freedom's song;/ let mortal tongues awake;/ let all that breathe partake;/ let rocks their silence break, the sound prolong./ Our fathers' God, to thee,/ author of liberty, to thee we sing;/ long may our land be bright/ with freedom's holy light;/ protect us by thy might, great God, our King."
-- America (My Country, 'Tis of Thee) by Samuel F. Smith, 1808-1895

United States Constitution, Article II, Section 1
Before he enter on the execution of his office, he shall take the following oath or affirmation: "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States."
Oath taken by federal Vice Presidents, Senators and Representatives
"I, [name], do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God."

"I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."

(Click on Flag or We the People for National and Constitutional history)

"The creative act is not performed by the artist alone; the spectator brings the work in contact with the external world by deciphering and interpreting its inner qualifications and thus adds his contribution to the creative act."
-- Marcel du Champ
"Here appears definitely the goal toward which the different arts are tending, the place where they will meet perhaps: the future city of the spiritual life, to be built by them [the Impressionsists], of which poetry, as the state of the soul, would be the commanding gesture, music the atmosphere and painting the marvellous decoration."
-- Achille Delaroche, "Concerning the Painter Paul Gauguin from an Aesthetic Point of View," as quoted in Paul Gauguin's Intimate Journals, translated by Van Wyck Brooks
"...for he shall gather them as the sheaves into the floor."
-- Micah 4:12
"L'Chaim!"
-- traditional Jewish toast meaning "To Life!"

Graphic: Liberty Enlightening the World
from Index of Acrylics by Jeannette Harris
New York's Statue of Liberty is a 151-foot statue of a woman holding a book and a torch on-high -- "One of the colossal sculptures of world history, the Statue of Liberty has greeted millions from other lands who crossed the ocean in search of freedom, opportunity, and is a symbol to the world of those ideals of liberty upon which our nation and form of government were founded."

"Give me your tired, your poor,/ Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,/
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,/
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,/
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
-- from The New Colossus, engraved at the statue's bottom,
poem by Emma Lazarus, 1883

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Appalachian Life and Art

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UPDATED FOR WINTER-SPRING 2010

"You see, in many ways, Appalachia isn't what it used to be. We have lost more than 1 million acres of land, along with 1000+ of miles of our once pristine streams, and 90% of our traditional coal jobs to mountaintop removal mining. This barbaric practice has reduced much of our home to rubble, and further damaged our perennially struggling local economies. The jobs are gone. The people are leaving. The water is toxic. And they are blowing up the mountains themselves.
"But the face of Appalachian resistance to 'Big Coal' is changing. Not only are we seeing unprecedented national and international media like NPR, the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal run with stories about the Appalachian people's struggle to end mountaintop removal, but we are seeing 100s of online activists and bloggers participate in helping us spread the word through the iLoveMountains Bloggers Challenge.
"Each week there will be featured blogs, activists, videos, facts, photos and more...."
-- Appalachian Voices

"... On phosphorous wings the phoenix floated/ The fires froze and the sea was hushed/ And when I tried to speak, the sun imploded/ And the war will wage in my guts/ Till the Devil bites the dust,/ I never saw him losin' a race, but I think he must/ ..."
-- The Phoenix composed by J. Sill and most recently recorded by Marianne Faithfull, Easy Come Easy Go

rag n. 1. old, worn clothes 2. a newspaper 3. a composition in ragtime
-- chew the rag [Slang] to chat

Appalachian river in winter, click for 'Namaste' short story

Exotic Listings

Jenny's made of earth and sky
and she knows more than she knows.
She's a butterfly
in a flowered thong,
a song that washes
passing boats
with the husks
of swaying straw,
a fiddle bending to her tune
and a dance that slithers wide.
She's a renaissance that rises
on the wild fields of your mind,
a chord that sweet seduces
from the mystery
of her laughing woman-child.

(1997)

Cenantua

There's a rush, a rumbling in the wind
as we stumble on this old trail.
Greening branches thicken over us.
They crosshatch our path.
In leafy folds, winged creatures watch.
Through pools of moss, snakes writhe.
When tumbling rocks crash like our dreams,
we'll pick up a shard
and fashion a brazier for warmth and rest.
The air is cool and gentle at the crest
and the land cascades in startled wonder
from the sky.

(1983)

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