Mama Hattie stood a scant five feet. She never learned to drive. She didn’t go to college. She stuck around the community—a cluster of houses and stores alongside a bend in the road. But she towers in my memory because of the magical summers spent with her in the north Georgia mountains.
Tag: Appalachia
Space Enough for God, Mama Hattie, and a Whale (Part One)
It’s the small things that keep a person alive. Take my grandmother, Mama Hattie. She made it to ninety-five. She was born in a wagon-and-mule era and died the day an astronaut stepped from the space shuttle to test heating devices in the toe caps of his boots.
Her obituary said she was somebody’s wife, mother, grandmother, great-grandmother, sister, and aunt. But she was so much more.
Lulled by a Late Snowfall: “Iowa Dreams”
A few days ago, snow dusted the southern landscape. Winter’s last blast showed up in a flurry of images on social media. Memory took me back to my time in Iowa. Yards seemed snowbound from November to March. I once stepped outside for a midnight sojourn in a still garden—and walked away with a poem.
Why I Love Appalachia: “Blue Ridge Weather Report”
In this glorious, but all-too-brief season in Appalachia, killing frost silences the nights except for the rustle of branches. Color steals across the trees, and leaves begin to drop. I wrote this poem after relocating to the South and falling in love (again) with autumn in the Blue Ridge.