By Carmen Eckard

Appalachia: ancient bones, older than eras
when dinosaurs roamed untraveled spaces.
Cradle of the Earth, life's genesis,
Nature's cot, green-kissed, nestling
between the granite jaws of yawning time.

Maybe a mother, surely.
Her presence lives in these deepwood valleys,
whispers among wind-woven treetops
and stones worn by relentless time.

Women, yes, Appalachian daughters,
strong earthbound spirits as silent as the mountains
that cradle the sky. Born of ancient boulder,
and under the green-canopied mystery, they carry
the hushed hymns of the hills in their blood.
Their roots entwine, their fingers reach.

Their hands flow like rivers, tracing the curve of earth
and heart, kindling love like a forest's dance of fire.
Their eyes—deep and knowing as ancient caverns,
gaze from beneath the brows of bedrock wisdom.

We stand, we see, we understand.
Appalachia is more than mountain stone and rushing river,
it is a history, alive and whispering.
Beneath our feet pulses an age-old testament
to life's tenacity in the face of fading footprints
left in time's relentless grains of sand.

Appalachia, unchanging,
is more than mere mountains—
in it, we see our reflection.
A mirror, perhaps, surely,
a home.