The presence of their square bodies
large and uncommon in our small rooms
half brothers
same shoulders, jaw, hips,
same lack of height
forty years from boyhood
400 miles apart
visiting back
passing through our home
for an hour
pawing through the sepia box
of photos
then asking,
surprisingly,
for songs
and melting
into the couch
no more need
to joke
hold up
explain
anything
just be doused
in their father’s singing
and mine
voices and guitars running
around the strings
carry them back
to the smell of wooden walls
the timber frame kitchen
songs soothe
though one of their faces reddens
to look at his old man
and shiver the truth of Kate Wolf’s lyrics.
We’ve only got these times we’re living in.
“Dad, sing your version of Country Roads.”
And so he does.
My favorite the bridge.
“Through the Detroit streets I can hear her distant calling…
And being here together makes me think we should’ve taken our stand yesterday.
Yesterday.”
My mind turns to Tygart Valley Middle School
music class
The discussion we led.
Is West Virginia just a land for leaving?
What does it mean, “Take our stand?”
I drilled our students to recite this line over and over,
“And being here together…”
‘til it rolled off the tongue in song.
I said none of this to my stepsons.
Tried to step aside
to allow a direct if fragile line from son to father
and back again
a thick rope of childhood bonds
frayed from lack of care through the decades
but ropey still
invisible as a spider’s web
which they say is stronger than steel
As a folklorist and weaver of audio tapestries, Carrie Nobel Kline records and entwines oral testimonials. A singer of songs of people in nature, Carrie has reseeded old songs in West Virginia schools. She operates Talking Across the Lines and dreams of immersing in wild, clean-running rivers.