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... Kentucky Is My Land...

Kentucky is my land.
It is a place beneath the wind and sun
In the very heart of America.
It is bounded on the east, north, and west by rivers
And on the south by mountains.
Only one boundary line is not a natural one,
It is a portion of southern boundary
That runs westward from the mountains
Across the delta lowlands to the Mississippi.

Within these natural boundaries is Kentucky,
Shaped like the mouldboard on a hillside turning-plow.
Kentucky is neither southern, northern, eastern or western,
It is the core of America.
If these United States can be called a body,
Kentucky can be called its heart.

I didn't have any choice as to where I was born,
But if I had had my choice,
I would have chosen Kentucky.
And if I could have chosen wind to breathe,
I would have chosen a Kentucky wind
With the scent of cedar, pinetree needles,
Green tobacco leaves, pawpaw, persimmion and sassafras.
I would have chosen too,
Wind from the sawbriar and greenbriar blossoms.

If I could have chosen the spot in Kentucky,
I would have chosen W-Hollow,
The place where I was born,
Where four generations of my people have lived,
And where they still live.
Here, too, I have always lived where
The hills form a semicircle barrier against roads
And there is only one way to get out.
This way is to follow the stream.
Here, I first saw Kentucky light.
Here, I first breathed Kentucky air.
And here I grew from childhood to manhood.
Before I had been away to see what lay beyond
The rim of the hills that closed my world.

I followed the little streams
That flowed over the rocks between the high hills to the rivers
And then somewhere into the unknown world.
I hunted the wild game in the hunting seasons
Skillful as an Indian.
And I ran wild over the rock-ribbed hills.

Kentucky's Sky Bridge
Sky Bridge in Kentucky

Enjoying this land of lonesome waters, sunlight,
Tobacco, pine, pawpaw, persimmion, sawbriar, greenbriar and sassafras.
I enjoyed the four seasons,
Sections of time my father used to divide his work for the year,
As much as any boy in America ever enjoyed them.

For Kentucky has four distinct seasons.
I learned this in childhood
And I didn't get it from a book.
Each season I learned was approximately three months.
Kentucky wasn't all summer, all autumn, all winter or spring.
The two seasons that I wanted to be longer and longer,
Were the Kentucky spring and autumn.

When winter began to break, snow melted
And ran down the little channels on the high hills.
Spring was in the wind.
I could feel it.. I could taste it..
I could see it.
stream
And it was beautiful to me.
Then came the sawbriar and the greenbriar leaves
And the trailing arbutus on the rock-ribbed hills.
Next came the snowwhite blossoms of percoon in the coves,
Then came the canvas-topped tobacco beds,
White strips of fortune on each high hill slope.
Then came the dogwood and the wild crabapple blossoms,
White sails in the soft honey-colored wind of morning
And red sails of the flowering redbud,
Stationary fire hanging in the soft mellow wind
Of evening against the sunset....
The weeping willow, stream willow, and pussy-willow
Loosed their long fronds to finger the bright wind tenderly.
Then came the soft avalanches of green beech tops
In the deep hollows that hid the May-apple,
Yellowroot, ginseng, wild sweet williams, babytear and phlox.
When I learned Kentucky springs
Could not go on forever,
I was sick at heart.

For summer followed with work on the high hills.
I plowed the earth on steep slopes
And hoed corn, tobacco, cane, beside my strong mother
With a bright-worn gooseneck hoe.
Summer brought good earthy smells
Of tobacco, cane and corn and ferny loam and growing roots.
Summer brought berries too,
That grew wild in the creviced rocks,
On the loamy coves and in the deep vallys.
Here grew the wild blackberries, strawberries, raspberries and dewberries.
All I had to do was take my bucket and pick them.

Then came the autumn with hazelnuts ripening on the pasture bluffs
Along the cattle paths and sheep trails.
The black walnuts, white walnuts, hickory nuts, beech nuts
Fell from the trees in little heaps.
And the canopy of leaves turned many colors
After the first sharp frost had fallen
And the soft summer wind turned cool and brittle
And the insect sounds of summer became a lost murmur
Like the dwindling streams.

stream

Autumn brought sweet smells of the wild possum grapes
And the mountain tea berries
And the blood-red sassafras and persimmon leaf...
Autumn brought the mellow taste of the persimmon
That after frost did not pucker my mouth with summer bitterness.
October pawpaws with purple-colored skins,
I found in heaps beneath the trees when I went after cows.
I opened them to find the cornmeal-mush softness,
Yellow-gold in color and better than bananas to taste.

These things are my Kentucky.
They went into the brain, body, flesh and blood of me.
These things, Kentucky-flavored, grown in her dirt,
Helped build my body strong and shape my brain.
They laid foundations for my future thoughts.
They made me a part of Kentukcy.
They made Kentucky a part of me.
These are the inescapable things,
Childhood to boyhood to manhood.
Even the drab hills of winter were filled with music.
The lonesome streams in the narrow-gauged valleys,
Sang poetic songs without words.
And the leafless trees etched on gray winter skies
Were strong and substantial lines of poetry.

When I was compelled to put poems on paper
They wrote themselves for they were ripe
And ready for harvest
As the wild berries, the persimmons and the pawpaws
As the yellow leaves and nuts falling from the trees.
Then I went for the first time into other states
And I knew my Kentucky was different.

Cumberland Gap
Cumberland Gap
You can see 3 states from here!
Tennessee, Kentucky and Virginia.

As I observed the closeness of the tombstones
In the the eastern cemeteries
This gave me a feeling that land was scarce.
I saw the tall smokestacks of industry
Etched against the eastern skies
And the cities that were a pillar of fire by night
And clouds of rolling smoke by day...
I saw New York, a city so large it frightened me,
Cliff dwellings as high as Kentucky mountains,
The streets and avenues were deep gorges
Between high walls of multicolored stone.
And while it interested me
To see how fellow Americans lived,
I longed for Kentucky sunlight, sights and sounds
And for the logshacks and the lonesome waters.
cabin

I was homesick for the land of the fox.
fox

And spring's tender bud, blossom and leaf,
For white sails of the dogwood and the crabapple
dogwood blooms
And the flame of redbud in the sunset.
redbud
I knew that my Kentucky was different,
And something there called me home.
The language too was different,
Not that it was softer
But it was more musical with the hard "g"s
Left automatically from the spoken word
And the prefix "a" supplemented...
I knew more than ever before my brain
Had been fashioned by sights and sounds
And beauties of wildgrowth and life of the hills
That had nutured my flesh from infancy to full growth.


Then I went beyond the hills to see
America's South of which I had always thought
We were a distinct part.
But I learned we were different from the South
Though our soils grew cane, cotton and tobacco...
We moved faster and we spoke differently.

The west I visited where land
Was level as a floor,
Where the endless field of growing corn
Was a dark cloud that hugged the earth,
Where the single field of growing wheat was endless, endless,
And the clouds always in the distance
Came down and touched the earth.
No matter how fast the train or the car ran,
It never reached the spot where the clouds came down to earth.
The people moved quickly,
They talked with the speed of the western wind.
They were "doers" not talkers.
I knew this was not the heart of America:
This was the West, the young strong man of America.

I visited the North where industry
Is balanced with agriculture
And where a man is measured by what he can do.
I did not find the softness of the pawpaw and the persimmon,
The lusty morning smell of green growing tobacco,
The twilight softness of Kentucky spring
But I did find the endless fields of corn and wheat
Where machinery did the work...
Beyond the cornfields and wheatfields
I saw the smokestacks of industry,
Belching fire and smoke toward the sky.
Highways were filled with traffic that shot past me like bullets.
And I found industrial city streets filled
With the fast tempo of humanity...
Then I was as positive as death Kentucky
Was not east, west, south, or north
But it was the heart of America
Pulsing with a little bit of everything.

...The heart of America
A land of even tempo,
And a land of mild traditions,
A land that has kept it traditions of horse racing,
Ballad, song, story and folk music.
It has held steadfast to its pioneer tradition
Of fighting men, fighting for America

Kentucky Vietnam Veterans Memorial

And for the soil of Kentucky,
That is filled with bluegrass beauty
That is not akin to poetry .. But is poetry...
And when I go beyond the border,
I take with me growth and beauty of the seasons,
The music of wind in pine and cedar tops,
The wordless songs of snow-melted water
When it pours over the rocks to wake the spring.
I take with me Kentucky embedded in my brain and heart,
In my flesh and bone and blood
Since I am of Kentucky
And Kentucky is part of me.

Author ~ Jesse Stuart ~



Did you know that Kentucky has more miles of running water
than any other state except Alaska.
The numerous river and water impoundments provide
1,100 commerical navigated miles.
It also has 12.7 million acres of commerical forest land, that's
half of the entire states land area.

"Thanks: http://parks.ky.gov/ For Reference"

Just the Facts . . .
Capital: Frankfort ... Population: 4,041,769
The first commercial oil well was on the Cumberland River
in McCreary County Kentucky in 1819.

Bordering States.. Illinois, Indiana, Missouri,
Ohio, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia


Origin of Name: ..
Kentucky ..From an Iroquoian word "Ken-tah-ten"
..meaning.. "land of tomorrow."
Motto: United We Stand, Divided We Fall

Kentucky Department of Tourism
Maps and Driving Directions

Dan's Pics.. Old Covered bridges
South Eastern Kentucky Photos
Exploring Kentucky .. Bill and Barb .. Pictures

Kentucky Coal Miners
Covered Bridges In Kentucky
Ron Jones Realty ..Lake Cumberland.. Somerset KY


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Shoot for the Moon Site Map


Created * Copyright ©Laine Caudell *2002-2006

.All Rights Reserved.

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Laurel Fork Rustic Retreat
Cabins For Rent
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Cabin Rentals bordering the Big South Fork Gorge Area..

Big South Fork, Laurel Fork Rustic Retreat

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