If you happen to get off the interstate and go behind the urban curtain, you’ll find that the Bluegrass is much more than race horses and bourbon. Down one road there’s a hollowed out farm house that the locals whisper about but never speak of aloud. Down the next there’s a sleepy town with a boarded up school, and a main-street that folks say used to be full. If you go a bit further you’ll see a church named “Friendship,” with little old ladies who gather in the church hall to gossip. Sometimes you’ll come across a closed down mine and people talking about the jobs they lost and what life used to be like. When you go down those backroads you can be assured that you won’t see the state they put on the back of the brochures. But it's beautiful, too. There’s mountains in the east that seem as old as time, with poor folks livin’ there singin' songs you won’t elsewhere find. There’s great forests and caves, and men and women whose smiles and good manners go with em’ to their graves. It’s a place composed of pioneers and soldiers and slaves, of people who love each other and proclaim that only Jesus saves. This land is more than its scenery, and more than its sources of revenue. It’s people and stories and traditions that we ought to continue. I know Kentucky may not be heaven but I'd say it's pretty darn close; for it'll always be my home and the place I love the most.*
I hope you enjoyed this poem. This is easily the most important one I’ve written, as it is both the longest and also deeply personal to me. I tried to put my heart and soul into this one, and I hope that you can feel that. I really do love my home state of Kentucky and I always will. This poetry is written by an amateur and that will likely show, but as long as you find something beautiful in it I will have accomplished my goal.
* Edit: In the original version of this poem, the last stanza read:
”A lotta people wanna leave,
but I wanna stay.
My home may not be perfect,
but Lord don’t I love it anyway.”
After some feedback, I rewrote it to be what you see now. Hopefully it is an improvement.
Whew, I felt that! Grew up in Louisville, lived 14 years in Green County, back in Louisville again. I once had the good fortune and pleasure to sit at Wendell Berry’s kitchen table. Headed to the Gorge next month with my 10 year old daughter for our annual hiking trip there. I love this land. You’re poem Isn’t half bad either😉
Grew up in the northeast and have never been to Kentucky. Hope maybe I will see it someday. Only concrete fact I remember is that GIs from Kentucky were disproportionately represented among Vietnam War veterans. But growing up in the northeast, you never heard mention of Kentucky. It was a place that existed in history books. Daniel Boone. Maybe that is why, that question mark, is why I have long suspected Kentucky holds little known and undervalued treasures. God bless!