Appalachian Spring

We don't know where we are really, or when,

only that the instruments occur

like something not yet said. A year

newly broken from the swift red flesh

of winter, a barn newly built

on rocky confidence, allow

a brief planned carelessness

an octave deeper into the earth.

Prayer is almost comical in this abundance,

fate a minor key that's left unplayed.

This reminder courses through the woodwinds,

turns in open fields. Faith says

landscape is there. Faith and works

return a tempo in the greening hills,

the unmemorized lines of animals.

Pieces of sunlight cut from a cloth is sky.

It's a simple gift to know what can be taken from us.

The last time through, the piano beats time,

the cellos pray again, the preacher simply ignored,

the new Americans quiet in their house of myth.

Shakers have no descendants and therefore must have faith

in cycles of work, day and death.

No night closes over their eyes

cello and obbligato haven't foreshadowed.

RICHARD TERRILL