Long Hunters at Rest

I want a long rifle of honey chesnut or striped tiger maple
With a long, long barrel of Pennsylvania iron, shiny like a nickle
And brass mounts to accompany me like a hounddog
As I run away, west from Virginia, to breathe again and discover,
Along the thinning ribs of the Blue Ridge
And across the forbidden lines of paternal denial
The narrowing path set out for me
Towards the fat bluegrass meadows of Kentucky
Where redbirds flit across the blue patches
And bluebirds wear their purity on their wings
Tucked among the ruffled quilt of bends and hollers
To trace the tracks of bears and wild pigs and deer among the green leaves
And the welcoming darkness of the undergrowth, hiding red-skinned hunters
With long knives and broken arrows cutting through the limestone cliffs
To split the forested mountains from the meadows to the black rivers below
And on to the westward to the falls of Louisville and down the Ohio
And on down the Cumberland and up the Red River to Christian Counties
Where grey limestone provides markers to Cadiz and Clarksville and Murray and Mayfield
And Radfords and Stubblefields and McKays and Garys,
Our mothers and fathers and uncles and aunts,
The great and the lesser, remembered, forgot
Who lie beneath the sod and take time to dose in the sleepy hills
The limestone thin markers standing as mileposts for time
And the chesnut and tiger maple long rifles hung above the stonemason's pride.