The Inundation of Old Butler

progressive thinktank,
rolls on
sweeping the appalachian tail
"we're going to tame this river"

a slow inundation
a murky sumbersion
a drafty house
hidden

until 1983

"an electrified home for every man"
and we all know that Tate and Davidson
and the rest who transgressed and fled
the synchronicity of a new era
knew it would come to this

RELOCATION SERVICES
on the side of a flat bed truck

"we've got kin buried here."
"we're relocating them too."
and here's the line about
the permanence of the dead

now they'll have to float on top
where the bargemaster smokes his pipe
and the mates think they see something in the morning mist
those diesel babies shooting pulses
down to the diamond where the Watauga boys played

It's only land!

home is where the heart is
but if your heart's in the very soil?

in silt, it sinks