If These Hills Could Talk

if these hills could talk,

what tales they might tell;

moonlit nights,

modified muscle cars,

racing down winding

mountain roads,

delivering weekly batches

of fresh ‘shine’ to the bars

and honky-tonks,

across the Roanoke Valley,

missing revenuers,

never to be seen again,

tucked safely in isolated

gullies and ravines,

their rotting bones

all that is left,

camouflaged fields of

the new ‘cash crop’,

growing undisturbed until

ready for market,

the armies of Grant and Lee,

flanking and counter-flanking,

trying to gain the higher ground,

each seeking an advantage,

the dead from forays

and undocumented skirmishes,

slowly dissolving into the

rocks and clay,

providing food for scavengers

and worms,

ancient rock altars,

built upon solitary ridges,

overlooking the valley far below,

shameful family secrets,

locked away for more generations

than anyone can remember,

silence the unspoken code;

if these hills could only talk.

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