Appalachian Communion
not everywhere but somewhere
biscuits and water
that’s
what we have
and bless
the Lord
consume him in our church
at
the time
and
we trust the Lord likes poverty
to set us here
and
accepts the hard bread that we offer with
the water of
same kind we were baptized
in
when
choosing to believe
so keeping faith with his blood and body
best we may
c l couch
photo by Sean Foster on Unsplash
Billboards and signage near the Smokies.
(x = space)
x
x
Death Toll in Kentucky
x
I am from there
I am from other places
Doesn’t matter
x
I don’t need to know
The topography
The lay of the land
x
The floods have happened
People have died
Many things are ruined
x
The count continues
While the water rules
And there’s no good way through
x
Forgotten parts of the world
Except in songs
Shows from NPR
x
There are storms, I know
And people die
And land is ruined
x
These people are one by one
Discovered
And remembered
x
There are stories
There will be more
And we should be grateful
x
Some places might rise
When dry
Some remain below
x
In hollow places
In the Earth
Inhabited
x
Uninhabited
For ages
The hollers
x
Remembered
Unremembered
We can only hope
x
All the counting
Numbers and greater meaning
And their stories
x
C L Couch
x
x
Kentucky Flooding Death Toll Rises to 37 as Governor Says Hundreds Remain Unaccounted for
https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/01/weather/kentucky-appalachia-flooding-monday/index.html
x
Photo by Wolfgang Hasselmann on Unsplash
x
Services with Variants
(from Appalachia)
I wonder as I wander
Out under the sky
Why Jesus, my Jesus,
Did come down to die
For poor on’ry people
Like you and like I
I wonder as I wander
Out under the sky
And then the story can begin in
Earnest—the grammar’s bad:
What does that really matter,
When the bias is for long and
Almost painful, loving notes
Wrought in the words to send
Them over; all the o sounds and
The is like convict souls, once
Held then let go like winged
Enchantment, soar above the
Planet in the room, to wave
Like smoke around the beams
Above the Sunday evening
Gathering, like convicts bound
Whose chains are broken with
No expectation, words and
Notes released like birds once
Wrapped by keepers’ hands—
In flight now to know no other
Mission than the erring sky
And song of wonder-wandering
“I Wonder as I Wander” (Appalachia)
Words and Music collected by John Jacob Niles
Collected by John Jacob Niles in Murphy, [North Carolina,] in July 1933 from a young traveling evangelist Annie Morgan. According to Niles, he asked her to sing the song repeatedly until he had memorized it. It was published in his 1934 Songs of the Hill-Folk.
http://www.hymnsandcarolsofchristmas.com/Hymns_and_Carols/i_wonder_as_i_wander.htm
and “on’ry” is ornery, which is a good word
clcouch123 
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