cumberland

(June 2022. I begin hitchhiking across the country once again. Waldo and I zigzag through the backroads of western Virginia, the Appalachians, trying to reach the tip of the state, the Cumberland Gap into Kentucky, which natives and pioneers once used as the easiest natural way to cross the mountains. The formation of the Cumberland Gap is geologically interesting, and its cultural role in the settling of the west by colonizers is interesting as well.)

cumberland

gap

freedom fills in
when there is a way
there is

and the floods
outward
where god pulled the plug

a meteorite chose
middleboro mad long ago
to freakin snipe this
spot in the old ridges
with the perfect combination
of preexisting conditions
(typo predicting conditions)
or comorbidities,
(which is to say life)
…
to clear a path!

the water debouching
the thirst flooding
the continent

delusional