Dilly Beans

Abstract

RITA SIMS QUILLEN, Hilton, Virginia, is the author of Looking for Native Ground: Contemporary Apppalachian Poetry. JEANNIE REED, native of Virginia, is making her second appearance in Appalachian Heritage . HARRY ROBIE teaches in the Department of English at Berea College. SHELBA COLE ROBISON, Laguna Beach, California, is Professor of Creative Writing at Saddleback College in Mission Viejo, California. JENNIFER E. SMITH resides in Washington, D.C., and does freelance writing. The Reverend Davidson The preacher from the next farm slowed his truck beside me on the hot grey road, and, as I climbed in, we stretched our faces in greeting. "Are you married, are you happy?" he asked in one jovial gasp, to which I answered, "Well, I'm happy..." leaving the statement open like the fields where we pastured our horses and where I danced like a mare foal. I couldn't explain the exquisiteness of tall timothy and of the thorny sweetness of blackberries in the summer heat from which he had been kind enough to rescue me in an air-conditioned pickup. -Diana R. Olsen MICHAEL THOMPSON is a Porcelain Restoration Artist in Berea. RAY TURNER, librarian for the Southeast Kentucky Area Health Education Center in Hazard, Kentucky, teaches children's literature for Alice Lloyd College, Pippa Passes, Kentucky . TOM R. WALTERS, Leesburg, Florida, had his Clay County Cemetery Records, Vol.1 published last year and hopes to follow with Vol. II soon. MIRIAM L. WOOLFOLK, past president of Kentucky State Poetry Society, has appeared in regional and international publications. DiIIy Beans (for my sister) On the last dog day, frantic last-minute phone calls in search of dillweed. Violently red co-op cayenne pepper. The smell of hot vinegar, the imported generosity of garlic. I return from a walk to find them already canned, the Blue Lakes I helped plant and pick: green columns in brine, sunken cities, crunchy fingerbones I will snap delightedly between my teeth on those lucky winter evenings I am home and my sister chooses to dole them out. This August afternoon we sit about the kitchen smiling, lifting our gin and tonics to abundance, to Ball jar autonomy, waiting for the seals to pop. -Jeff Mann 79 ...