“When I Come Home”
I get this feeling
when I come home.
It’s the feeling
That I got-
Today:
when I crossed the Red River
barreling toward Jackson
making a beeline for Cornettsville.
Summer of Junior year of undergrad:
when I crossed the Atlantic
coming home from studying
the Cold War in Alexanderplatz.
Every weekend in college:
when we crossed Horse Creek,
singing to 90s rock and free as the rain,
but unable to stay away from home.
In May of one year and December of the next:
when we crossed Elk Creek
bringing our girls - and my soul - home
from ARH in Whitesburg.
Perhaps it’s the same feeling
that my Papaw had
when they crossed the backwater of Norris Lake
moving back to Linefork.
Perhaps it’s the same feeling
my 7th-great-uncle Daniel Boone
felt when he crossed over the Gap
and saw heaven with his own eyes.
I am rooted to this place.
My feet are meant to trod
these same fields
my Papaw drove the mule with the plow on.
My lungs are meant to breathe
this ancient, sweet mountain air
my Mamaw pierced with hymns at Sunrise Services.
My hands are meant to play
these mountain instruments
and hold my head like great Uncle John
while I do.
My bones are meant
to grow old and die in this place
like my ancestors.
That explains why—
every single time—
I get this feeling
when I come home.
— Seth M. Lewis
“Take Me Back”
(Note: “Take Me Back” is part of an ongoing project the poet calls “Pictures and Poetry” – each stanza corresponds to the photograph above it. The poet took the pictures.)
Take me back in the holler
where wooden quilt patterns hang on barns
and tin-roofed woodsheds
Take me back in the holler
where the roads curve and the kudzu eats
everything alive
Take me back across the tracks
even if the tracks lead to nowhere
where men can hear ghosts
Take me back where the sun shines
through the rain and the fog-warming, bright
Like when I was 5
— Seth M. Lewis
“21st Century Beat’s Lament”
Old friend, what are you looking for?
Wistfully wishing you could be whisked away
Out West — to see this land that
Kerouac told you (so many, many times)
had so much to “dig”.
Old friend, why do you cry?
Feeling fretfully frantic & fluting ferociously
With flame lit fantasies - to learn that this existence
Ginsberg wrote & felt
was really quite lonely.
Old friend, where are you going?
Surely not on that sweaty, sultry, spirited
Odyssey across this electric land like
Cassady in the “Furthur” bus:
Puttering, psychedelic…..out of gas.
Old friend, why do you continue to listen
To that eccentric exhalation of their elucidating jazz?
Seeking to skim the secrets of
Burroughs & his travels—
zigzagging & naked across the continent.
Old friend, isn’t it grand:
To be filled with that freedom to fight convention & form?
To be embraced for accepting yourself, not expectation—just expression?
To be out on a path of unwavering wanderlust & a need to “know”?
To be unabashed, unapologetic, unashamed, & unafraid?
To be Beat?
— Seth M. Lewis
“Mason Jar Flowers”
I always allow the flowers
In our mason jars to completely die.
For if we were tossed when we began to wither,
how could the entirety of our beauty
be appreciated and loved until
the petals f
a
l
l
and
l i t t e r
The windowsill?
— Seth M. Lewis
“I Went for a Walk on a Misty Morning”
(Note: “I Went for a Walk on a Misty Morning” is part of an ongoing project the poet calls “Pictures and Poetry” – each stanza or stanzas correspond to the photograph above it. The poet took the pictures.)
I went for a walk on a misty morning.
While I trudged, I met a robin
Blood-breasted, beautiful he rose from his branch
Slitting the air, his wings like scissors, sailing and swooping
Down to catch his worm
I wait, wistfully watching through wet, smudged glasses.
While I watched, he cocked his head-Digging and devouring the devourers of the dead
The circle of life continues, contemplatively.
Continuing on my walk, I went
When through the mist, I searched and saw a Titmouse
Tufted, tittering, tweeting, and tottering through the trees
Scurrying, slicing, and scouting ahead.
I walk with her, patiently letting her take the lead
Clouds for feathers, puffy and gray seeping to white
Her eyes pierce me, like daggers of blackest night
She sounds her sentry’s song.
— Seth M. Lewis
Seth Lewis is a Central Appalachian father, husband, actor, musician, and poet from Cornettsville, KY. He graduated with his B.A. in Political Science and History from Berea College and his M.A. in Political Science from Indiana University. When he isn’t writing, he can often be found sitting on the porch playing the banjo, or hiking through the hills hunting mushrooms with his wife. He is influenced by poets such as Allen Ginsberg, Lord Byron, Emily Dickinson, and Wendell Berry.
