The ministry of making art in Appalachia

–by Final Girl

Why I Stay

Three brown tires are on the bank of the river, like shells would be on the beach of another place. This is not that place.

It is hard to deny some of the beauty of Appalachia: rolling roads, haze on the fields, morning-green hills, horses. Other beauty is tricky. You have to train your eye—or, you have to have a certain eye already.

I don’t believe the broken-down bus mars the sunset. I think it makes it, morning glory twisting around the rims. Pokeberries stain the farmhouse purple; we threw them against its side. There is a kind of beauty in giving up. There is a sort of joy in why the hell not. Continue reading →