Times Was Hard Then...Lordy Be!
copyright by James B. Goode

Time was
When times was hard...Lordy be!
Back in the hollers
Where shotgun shacks slumped on poplar stilts
And chickens squinted their slit eyes
From roosts in apple trees.
Time was
When black smoke belched and billowed
From steam engine stacks
And slithered in the crevices of hills.
Lordy be!
And Daddy came home 
Through the mouth of the pony mine
With his raccoon face and hardpan hands
Swinging his round dinner pail.
Time was
When we grubbed new ground
And planted corn on these rocky hillsides.
Families hoed with goosenecks singing through sandstone--
All hands
Growing to the shape of the hoe handle.