Bluffton, Tennessee
If I could cultivate the sun, could
put a furrow in its rays, I wouldn’t
be hunkering in this cave of forms
where the shadowcaster is too
far back in, and I’m too far afraid
to bellycrawl like a baby, who yet
can walk, yet can crawl proper.
I could come out into the day from
the rocky dark of my existence,
the sore elbows, knuckles scorched
from ministering to the torchflame
to find angelica, mandrake, elecampane,
witch-hazel, valley of McDowell
County and see crows convene in
yellow-cropped grass, ginger-
stepping in the season-tilted light:
come late-March snow, the promise
of newleaf medicine and the feral sun.
William Rieppe Moore is from Richland County, South Carolina and moved to Unicoi County, Tennessee in 2012 with his wife, Cherith, where they practice homesteading and animal husbandry. In May of 2021, he received his MA in English from East Tennessee State University. His work has appeared in Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture, James Dickey Review, Still: The Journal, Vita Brevis, and Tiny Seed Literary Journal.
Header photo by Nature Capture Realfoto, courtesy Shutterstock.
